OT - Products that drive you crazy?

[Mike Burdick]

I'm usually pretty easy going but sometimes I run into a product that just drives me nuts - especially if it's forced on me!

Here's one that really takes the cake...

The local grocery store I go to has now started using some sort of tape ties to close bread packages. Supposedly there is a way to open these without making a hole in the bag, but I haven't figured it out and no way can I get it to stick again for "resealing" the package! I made a complaint to the store manager but all he said was that it's for showing that the package wasn't tampered with! Yeah right! I have now resorted to grabbing a couple of "old fashioned" twist ties at the produce section before buying bread.

Okay...one more thing while I'm at it!

Shopping carts, yeah SHOPPING CARTS! I was going to shop at Wal-Mart and took the first cart available when entering the store. What a mistake! That cart had the back wheels bent such that they were rubbing on the side of its holder thereby making it very difficult to push, but since I was in a hurry, I continued to use it. After I checked out, I met the "Greeter" and pointed out the problem expecting him to set the cart aside for repair. Well... I was in for a surprise! With a smile from ear to ear, his response was: "We bent the wheels on ALL the carts so the wind wouldn't blow them around in the parking lot." What an asinine fix! Oh...I noticed Wal-Mart was using those "tape" things on their bread packages too! Figures!

Any of you care to comment on some of the "stupid" products you've come across?
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[Evan]

Unremovable price tags that are applied to items -on the threads/where it needs to be painted/where it permanently mars the finish/ on the front instead of the back etc etc..

Shampoo bottles with a featureless symmetrical flip up cap.

Products with product information printed so small that I have to use my stereo microscope to read it.

#$%@&*#&* PACKAGING THAT REQUIRES A BANDSAW TO OPEN

[wbleeker]

A lot of our fruit has little paper tags stuck on for branding purposes and they are nearly always impossible to get off.
Will

[bobw53]

Gum, That Orbitz stuff, not bad gum, and it seems to have taken over, at least in the stores out here. The plastic wrap does have a little tag to pull it open with, but you need an electron microscope to find it, and then after you find a knife and get the plastic off, the damn gum sticks to the bottom of the package, even though its individually wrapped. I won't buy it anymore its a PIA.

Individually sealed allergy pills. Some aren't bad, some require tools and are crushed into mush by the time you get into them.

[Doc Nickel]

The products that drive me crazy are the mass-produced crap.

And by that I mean the stuff you find in those cheapy knife catalogs, or those import-warehouse suppliers that make Harbor freight look like The Sharper Friggin' Image.

I just got two of these today; One's a knife catalog (already tossed it, so I can't say the actual company name- as if it mattered) that's chock full of "ninja swords", 10-for-$3 pocket knives, and "fantasy" knives featuring cast-resin skulls, pewter spikes and- for just $5 more! a handsome faux wood-grain display stand!

Who in God's name buys this crap? 90% of the "knives" in that thing are worthless crap, being roughly stamped and poorly ground out of unheattreated mystery-metal stainless-analogue, and even then, they're some 'fantasy' design that's not only completely impractical, but often dangerous simply to hold because so many of the extra edges and pointy bits tend to point back at the user.

I know they're largely wall-hangers and decoration for people that think their double-wide isn't classy enough for that velvet painting of the dogs playing poker. But really, is there enough of a market out there that these guys have to keep coming up with new ways to combine plastic skulls, steel studs, and knife blades that look like they're bandsawed out of the remnants of a previous stamping operation?

The other was a junk catalog- the usual tripe, like "ultrasonic" mole repellers, "magnetic" shoe insoles, cordless toothbrushes and about eight different styles of LED flashlight that all try to combine regular white LEDs, "UV" LEDs and a laser pointer!

Half of that s**t is a cheap Chinese knockoff of an actual halfway-decent product (and so advertised as a "name brand!") and the other half is entirely new Chinese crap that's made to be cheap, and to hold together just long enough to work once before it breaks.

That's what drives me crazy. That these shysters can make a couple of million a year foisting landfill-clogging, self-destructing plastic crap off on people, and I can't find twenty people to buy my real, live, hand-machined-from-316-stainless hardware, even though I price it to the point I'm probably making about $4 an hour.

Doc.

[Quetico Bob]

That seemingly indestructible foil seal they put on the little bottles of gas line antifreeze. The kind that’s put under those impossible to open pop caps unless you have a pry bar.

I sometimes think stuff like this is done on purpose. There’s the group of package designers giggling their a$$es off, “ lets see them open this one, we know its going to be -40, wearing gloves, keys still in the ignition cause its to cold to turn off and the only dime in their pocket will be buried under umpteen layers of clothes”

Cheers, Bob

[uncle pete]

Bob, -40 ???? As I said they had to pay me to go to Ontario.

[Pherdie]

Pre-recorded CD/DVD wrappings.....

A buddy recently loaned me a movie he had just purchased. I accused him of loaning it to me first so he didn't have to open the !@#$ thing........

Some of those individually wrapped small candies can be equally frustrating, especially to us sugar 'junkies'. Just can't get them in the mouth (unwrapped ) fast enough.

Fred

[MrSleepy]

Tin can openers..

cant find a decent one that works more than 1/2 dozen times before it goes blunt or falls to pieces..
they are now all chinese and cheap garbage..

Rob

[Liger Zero]

I'm a Plastic Man, I love plastic and all the wonderful stuff it can do... there is a material for every application it seems.


That said whoever invented that sh1t they make electronic "blister packs" with needs to be violated in the most horrific was possible, then executed... AED'd back to life and killed a second time.

[winchman]

My favorite is the apple sauce I like.

It used to come in a glass jar with straight smooth sides, and flat bottom, and a mouth wide enough to get a spoon and several fingers through. Getting all the contents out was easy as pie.

It was replaced with a thin-walled plastic jar with an irregular domed bottom, rippled sides, and a smaller mouth. It's dang near impossible to get the last 5% out of the jar with all the places for it to hide from a spoon.

To top it off, they increased the price 20% and reduced the amount by 5%.

Roger

[aboard_epsilon]

back on topic ..taps with barely readable etchings on them ..you have to take the bloody things outside in the daylight to be able to make them out...even then you've got the magnifying glass on them ..use them enough times and the markings disappear altogether .,,..and all taps are heading the same way ..

Ive got old ones were the things have the size struck into them ..they all should be like this .

all the best.markj

[bruto]

Tin can openers..

cant find a decent one that works more than 1/2 dozen times before it goes blunt or falls to pieces..
they are now all chinese and cheap garbage..

Rob

Mr S, I think you can still get the classic Swing-Away hand held openers, and as far as I know they're still good, and still American made. Years ago, My then wife and I helped run a lemonade stand (non profit fundraising) at Lime Rock Race track, requiring the opening of many many cans of frozen lemonade, and these were the only openers that worked consistently well. Ten bucks and you're set for years to come. But make sure you get the genuine article, because there are look-alikes which do not have gear drive to the cutter, and they will not do the job.

[dewat]

Tin can openers..

cant find a decent one that works more than 1/2 dozen times before it goes blunt or falls to pieces..
they are now all chinese and cheap garbage..

Rob

I've had the same experience as you, I don't use a can opener much anymore but when I do I use one of these, obviously a product made on the KISS principle

http://www.georgia-outfitters.com/page52.shtml

[Teenage_Machinist]

Computers. PCs especially, Macs to a lesser degree. SOOOO ANNOYING!

My can opener is just fine. Works perfect, and I think it is older than I am, which in this age is saying a lot.

Ball point pens are always annoying. I have five pens in my backpack for school. Two of them work consistently.

Taps that have the stamped numbers are a problem to me. My eyes are good (they won't be!) but the stamped numbers cause runout when machine-tapping.

Ungraded nuts and bolts. My clamping kit is ungraded, i think. Part of it is wrecked.