10 Things That Really Annoy Me

...ticking over waiting to pour 10 litres of cheap fuel into their tanks? Idiocy or what?

6) THE ELECTRICITY AND GAS COMPANIES

……OK, petrol and diesel prices have come crashing down at a speed that has left most of us breathless.

How about it electricity and gas providers? You kept on telling us that your prices were allied to the cost of a barrel of crude when it was going up and up, you are staying awfully ...
...at making myself, and everyone else, angry, with their high and mighty behaviour, faceless bureaucracy and a unique talent at holding on to as much of our money through the Direct Debit system as is legally possible.

7) MOTHERS SMOKING OVER THE BABY

On the way to work this morning we passed a very young mother with a baby in a push chair. She was smoking, that annoys me, she has the choice as to smoking or not, her baby ... more

I was inspired to write this review by my friend Kirsty (DixieChick10) who's refreshingly youthful take on this theme I read many moons ago, indeed, Number 1 was actually written at the time of a distant, near forgotten postal strike……the world was a different place…….the economy yet to see the rocky shore.

1. MR LAWSON OF SOUTHAMPTON

Now usually, when writing such a review, I would change the names to protect the innocent, guilty, stupid etc, but I'm sorry, in this case I'm making an exception!

Mr Lawson is a tooling merchant in Southampton and he REALLY annoyed me.

As a tiny sideline, our family business produces an engineers' marking fluid, an ink or dye by another name if you like. This comes in many different colours - most usually blue or white. These colours we mass produce and hold in stock. "Special" colours such as red, green, purple and yellow are made to special order. The fluid, once mixed to our own registered secret formula is then poured into plastic bottles of one or five litres and sent out to the customer…….

……now ordinarily we despatch our goods, post office strikes not withstanding, by first class mail - the exception to this being the highly explosive marking fluid which has to go by road transport via an authorised hazardous goods courier.

Whilst our product is ridiculously cheap - especially when taking into account Mr Lawson's 17.5% merchant's discount, transporting the stuff is not. Mr Lawson's first telephone enquiry was taken by one of my telesales staff in the morning, he enquired as to the price and lead time of ONE litre of Red Layout Fluid, the answer was £4.95 (£6.00 less his 17.5% discount) and two to three days to make. At lunchtime his colleague makes a further phone call to enquire about the delivery charge - £7.25 minimum carriage charge.

Late that same afternoon, Mr Lawson himself then has the misfortune to speak to me, demanding that we send his order carriage free because his customer refuses to pay the £7.25 carriage charge;

"Hang on a minute Mr Lawson, are you seriously expecting me to send you a product worth less than £5.00 carriage free when it costs £7.25 to transport?"

"I am not complaining about the cost of your product, merely that you should be sending it carriage free!"

"Are you seriously telling me that you would supply a customer of YOURS with a product worth £4.95 and agree to pay carriage on that product of £7.25?"

"Of course I wouldn't!"

"Then why on earth are you expecting ME to do this for YOU? I'd be better off sending you two pounds in an envelope and not supplying you with any product at all! I am afraid that I am not going to loose any sleep at all over the loss of a £4.95 order, after invoicing and packing it, it isn't as though we would be making any money on it anyway - even if you did agree to pay the carriage charge. Good day to you Mr Lawson!"

2. THE UNNAMED MAN WHO TRIED TO KILL ME ON SATURDAY

Let us call HIM Mr Angry.

(Or maybe it was Mr Lawson taking his revenge!)

I was not so much angry as scared sh*tless, such a thing has never happened to me before.

To set the scene, here are Mrs R and I, quite innocently walking down a busy shopping street in Worthing Saturday lunchtime when CRASH!

I saw this "gentleman" approaching a huge parking space in his Fiesta and was rather surprised to see the excessive speed at which he attempted to enter the space forwards, bouncing over the curb, at which point he was very obviously going to impact - hard - the very large black 4x4 Mercedes parked in front.

There was nothing that we could do but to witness him smash straight into the much larger parked car, splitting its substantial front bumper wide open.

At this point, the driver, totally unconcerned about any damage that he had obviously caused, was more put out by my position curb-side and then in the road inspecting the damage and taking a mental note of his number plate - I was fully expecting him to speed away from the scene.

He was gesticulating at me to "mind my own business"……I'm sure that you will all be aware of the childish finger touching nose gesture here. What happened next left myself and other witnesses on the pavement absolutely dumbstruck……

……he drove his car straight AT me before screeching to a halt, alighting from the driver's seat and telling me to mind my own "*/$k#n& business, no damage done!"

As it was, he had not even looked at either car, I retorted that he had split the bumper wide open……

……at which point the Mercedes owner, well in proportion with his larger than life car, appeared from his adjacent shop doorway……

3) APPLE's iTunes PROGRAM

Yes, iTunes has gotten me REALLY angry over the last few months!

Confession time…….

I have been away from this site seemingly for ever, a very privileged few of you are aware of the cause of my protracted absence, well, let me say here that it was iTunes that 'started it'!

For reasons that really do not matter here, my wife and I, back in August, joined the iPod / MP3 generation and, I like to think, in some style. We purchased an 80GB iPod Classic, a superb piece of design which, months later, still leaves me in total awe of its stunning design and capabilities.

Such a pity then that the person who designed the hardware very obviously had no input whatsoever into the software program that makes it all work. This is no iPod or iTunes review, suffice for me to say here that iTunes is one of the worst, most maddeningly unstable programs that it has ever been my displeasure to use.

Having loaded, eventually, 8298 tracks, well over 600 albums, our 80GB device is only around a third full to capacity. I thank my lucky stars that I ran out of albums prior to running out of patience altogether. The system, no matter how often synced crashed totally twice, taking all of my work with it, on numerous other occasions it merely threw a fit and seized, heart in mouth (in case it wiped the LOT again) I re-set the computer, crossing my fingers that our precious tracks would still be there.

The final straw came last week, when thanks to updates loaded by Microsoft the PC gave out altogether, naturally taking my six weeks of hard work with it, I was as close to tears as I have been in recent memory.

PC World taking £180 from me to back up all the hard drive data - including the iTunes files seemed cheap indeed at that moment in time……

……Now, if any of you can tell me how to re-assemble it all from my backed up external hard drive I'll love you for ever!

Is it possible to load the iTunes from the iPod to the PC?

Suggestions (in simple single syllable English preferably) in my Guest Book please……

4) THE PRESS, THE CREDIT CRUNCH, THE RECESSION & THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Oh yes, the BIG ONE!

To any of you truly struggling during this difficult financial time I apologise for making light of the current situation and suggest that you do not read on……

……as I laugh all the way to the bank - especially as you and I now own a fair chunk of it.

Just what on earth IS going on out there?

Each day I watch or listen to the news, avoid reading the papers, it is wall to wall gloom and doom, the financial markets are failing, the brokers and bankers have to go without their huge bonuses, the estate agents and Porsche dealers are……

Hold on a minute! How many of US actually move in those circles, yet this situation is affecting jobs all over the country and why? Quite simply because due to the press feeding and feeding, like vultures, off of the initial demise of an American bank, a total crisis of confidence has taken place.

Otherwise quite prudent and sensible people (ok, I'm talking about my own mother) are considering withdrawing money from the bank "just in case" and doing what? Stashing it under the mattress!

Oh yes, great idea, this is the year 2008, we are (trying to be) the iPod generation!

Due to years of mis-management by consecutive governments of both colours, manufacturing, the real economy in this country, has been allowed to dwindle away, out-sourced to the Far East - leaving us what?

Totally exposed to the vagaries of the financial and "customer services" industry, that's what!

Well RICHADA is actually here to tell you that it is NOT all gloom and doom out there. I am, and always have been genuinely part of that REAL economy, making a REAL product that you can touch (not that you would actually want to - but you get my drift), use, and that has a purpose.

The press are not reporting the fact that, due to the depressed state of the pound, anybody here in the UK making items that do not involve finance (housing and cars mostly) are actually incredibly busy. It is over ten years since we last saw order books as we have now, the vast majority of our customers are reporting the same thing too.

UK manufacturing has for the first time in a decade become competitive.

That I actually find myself publishing such thoughts is in itself extraordinary, almost anyone who knows me would tell you that I am a born pessimist.

5) THE PRESS, THE £0.979 PER GALLON of PETROL & THE FUEL QUEUES

The rapidly escalating cost of raw materials and particularly crude oil costs had a major triggering influence on the current economic situation, of that there is no doubt.

However, looking for petrol to throw on the flames, again, the sensationalist reporting of the hikes in gas and oil prices became a self fulfilling philosophy. Just when we had all prepared ourselves to eat less Tesco Finest and walk instead of drive, what happens? Prices come crashing down again to a level that we would never have imagined……

……causing thousands of headless chickens behind the wheels of motor cars to queue for hours in order to buy "cheap" fuel at our local ASDA. Just try to get in there to do your weeks shopping, you must be joking.

Just what did all these people do when petrol was at £1.20+ per litre? Were all these queuing cars laid up on blocks?

AND just how many miles have they driven in order to spend an hour with their engine ticking over waiting to pour 10 litres of cheap fuel into their tanks? Idiocy or what?

6) THE ELECTRICITY AND GAS COMPANIES

……OK, petrol and diesel prices have come crashing down at a speed that has left most of us breathless.

How about it electricity and gas providers? You kept on telling us that your prices were allied to the cost of a barrel of crude when it was going up and up, you are staying awfully quiet now.

These are however utilities practiced at making myself, and everyone else, angry, with their high and mighty behaviour, faceless bureaucracy and a unique talent at holding on to as much of our money through the Direct Debit system as is legally possible.

7) MOTHERS SMOKING OVER THE BABY

On the way to work this morning we passed a very young mother with a baby in a push chair. She was smoking, that annoys me, she has the choice as to smoking or not, her baby does not.

8) ESTATE AGENTS

With apologies to those of you that are here, you know who you are and I suspect that you feel like easy targets, I will go as easy as I can.

There are few more stressful things in life than moving house, a role I have always thought an estate agent should be there to lessen rather than increase, but why is that not the case?

By being first time buyers when we moved in here we only had 50% of the stress I guess, but that was plenty for me in one lifetime thank you. It is difficult to single out any one of them, we dealt with all of them in this area and we were VERY specific in the written requirements which we presented to each and every one of them.

Price is an obvious criteria when purchasing a property; adding to that the need for a detached bungalow, not requiring renovation, with a garage and not a shared driveway, should narrow the field a little.

We may have been first time buyers, but at 39 years old, I was hardly that green when it came to matters property. We were escorted to one property, a semi-detached bungalow with a shared driveway, at the bottom of which was a drop that was so steep that you could never have recovered a vehicle should you have been stupid enough to attempt to use the garage. We were not surprised to find that it needed totally gutting inside, the smell in the bathroom (I'll spare you the details) was a worry too.

"Oh yes, but it IS £10,000 less than your budget!" was all the hapless agent had to say.

The bungalow that we finally purchased - fulfilling all of our criteria - was spun in a totally "different" way. Here the young agent was in awe of the owner, a single man, very well preserved, in his early 50's. We were told that he was away a lot because he was a pilot. There were no keys to the garage, I asked for its internal dimensions - I had a large car (an Omega) at the time, and wanted to garage it:

"Oh, that'll be no problem; he (the vendor) has a BMW - a big one"

Seeing the external size of the garage I could not really see a 6 or 7 Series going in there……

Nice guy Paul (the owner) once we got to know him later……

……he was a cabin steward, driving a bottom of the range 3-Series!

Come to think of it I suppose all of that, in hindsight, is more amusing than annoying.

And yes, the Omega did fit, just in case you were wondering.

9) SELFISH AND SELF CENTRED PEOPLE

NO explanation required.

10) SOUTHERN WATER

I have never been so angry in my life!

Oh my God, you will be wishing that I never got started on this one!

If the other utility providers have managed to annoy, this outfit has managed to reduce RICHADA to a quivering wreck, apoplectic with rage.

In spite of all that you have read here, I do not anger easily and my dear wife actually commented that in the seven years that she has known me she has never seen me so angry.

It is an otherwise pleasantly ordinary Thursday evening, around 7.45; I am not so happily iPlodding away when the telephone beside me rings.

"Good evening Mr RICHADA this is XYZ Debt collection agency here" says the very polite young lady

"I'm terribly sorry, you must have the wrong number" say I.

"We have been passed your debt of £101.35 from Southern Water for collection"

"I beg your pardon? My wife paid this bill 18 days ago on our credit card" by which time we actually have proof on our screen that Southern Water had indeed taken the £101.35 18 days previously.

The lady debt collector was polite, extremely well trained I thought, she has after all heard all the excuses in the book I am sure. As it happens I have never owed anyone a penny in my life, added to which we had suffered a catalogue of disasters involving Southern Water ever since the installation of a water meter 18 months previously.

We had spent the whole of last summer chasing them for bills which never arrived, paid our account on credit card because we could not get a bill out of them and then nothing…….until on 1st August a final demand arrives, no bill ahead of it mind you. That was the day on which we paid our account - my wife actually registering a complaint that we had not seen a bill from them.

The debt collection agent gave me a number to call at Southern Water, it turned out to be a 9.00 - 6.30 customer services number, in sheer frustration I blasted off, as politely as I could, an email to them instead.

When I finally caught up with Southern Water on the phone the next morning a very polite young man explained to me that the operator who had taken my wife's credit card payment had posted it against our 18 month obsolete water rates account instead of our metered account!

If anything I was even more angry, how can one household have two accounts for water? Through his profuse apologies, I demanded a full receipted invoice for the original payment and a written apology from Southern Water.

That afternoon I sat down and wrote to Les Dawson (Oh yes! Funny eh?) the Chief Executive of Southern Water, requesting to know just how HE would feel should he be contacted mid evening, perhaps in the middle of a family dinner party, by a debt collection agency, perusing money that had been paid almost three weeks previously.

The following Monday I called Southern Water to check that our water account had indeed now been credited, the attitude of this particular operator was deplorable. I could tell that he thought I was wasting his time - he asked me why I was "checking up" on them, and laughed out loud when I said that I had had a call from a debt collection agency. He may have thought it funny, I certainly did not.

A few days later I had a call from a gentleman, in charge of what I now call Southern Water's Apology Department "in response to my letter to Mr Dawson". My case, he admitted, was far from alone - "system problems" had left many who had changed to metered water in the same boat.

The punch line at the end of this very un-funny story is that Mr Apology insisted on giving me his direct line number "just in case"…….

Mr RICHADA (very angry indeed, all over again!) "Just in case WHAT? You mean to say that you are expecting this to happen again?"

Next time I'll keep quiet and let the debt collection agency take me to court, we all know how the press love a great negative story.

MANY THANKS AND WELCOME BACK!

Very many thanks for bearing with me, and indeed for allowing me to exorcise my anger in this way.

Writing this, apart from number 1 which was "last generation", listening to the iPod, I now feel surprisingly stress free and ready to face another extraordinarily busy day tomorrow.

The photographs? Come on, now I've wound you all up I thought that you deserved a treat!

RICHADA © October 2008. 

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