Little Things That Irk You IX

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

My hair. Had it cut short just over a year ago after having had it down past my shoulders before that. Now it’s at that length where it’s too short but also too long to do anything with. Got a good six months before it gets to a decent length.

[Lebowski]

I started loosing my hair a few years back and just shave my head now so i don't end up with an egg and nest or end up looking like a Monk. I save money on haircuts though and haven't had to visit a barber for a number of years now so save a fortune on haircuts and hair-care products. I used to hate the barbers it was such an awkward experience having to explain what you want doing and never really being happy with it, having to make small talk with someone who's probably had the same conversation 15 times all ready that morning is torture too.

[MrKirov]

This was an irk, and something that made me smile in the end so cross posting in both Especially considering the recent ebay dramas in here:

So my missus ordered a statue from a website for me for christmas, it was supposed to be out in October, and she paid in full upfront. At the time, the site was well reviewed apparently. Here we are in November, the item is "out of stock" on their website and her order just says "order placed" still.

She emailed the company 5 times over a month, with not a single reply, and the site doent have any other contact method. She came to me not knowing what to do.

I investigated and found everywhere like Trustpilot, Facebook, ebay, all of them have poor reviews as of late all saying the same thing- taken money and stonewalled contact.

After some investigation, I found the guys full name and further details on companies house when looking for a phone number- but got no further than that. I left a poor trustpilot review (along with all the others) and mentioned his name within the review.

A day later I had a response from the guy on there, who took umbrage at me daring to mention his full name, as apparently its "personal information"... but then went on to give some sob story about how his mental health and that he took a break from the online business and focused on his physical store... and that he got stung in customs when ordering items, and then had to resource them.

To me not good enough- judging by the number of similar complaints he's just taking money and then "taking a break" -what about the mental health of the people who are now out of pocket? Why couldnt you have contacted the people effected?

He then said in the reply to email his again with the details to resolve and figure out what to do. I gave the benefit of the doubt and did so, and no response... and updates from other peoples reviews saying the same, than they still didnt get a reply.

So, I decided to do my best Nev and Max impression, and track the guy down. He had no phone number anywhere, but his mention of a physical store gave me something to go off- I found the store, used google maps to find it was part of an arcade, and found a phone number for the arcade and rung them.

I explained what was happening and that I wanted a way to contact the owner- and it just so happened he walked into the arcade office and she passed the phone to him.

He was very arsey. Apparently I was "posting personal details" about him online (I literally put his name) and that it was out of order that I was ringing his place of business. I politely told him that takign peoples money and stonewalling them is whats out of order, and that you cant expect to hide behind anonymity. He continued to argue about personal information, I said all that information is publicly available, and that he actually registered his business initially to his home address, which I can see in front of me- so no, I didnt post that, as that is what I would consider "personal information".

He went a bit more silent and went less arsey. After some conversation, he processed the refund, which my missus has now got confirmation of in email.

I cant believe that someone can take people money- in some cases 2 years according to reviews, not deliver the items, completely stone wall them, and then get arsey that someone has tracked him down. But on the other hand im hoping its **** him up a bit so he replies to all the other people and sorts it out.

Now the real question, do I post the contact number/details and how the call went on trustpilot for other people to be able to sort their issues out?

[Lebowski]

id say post his address and contact details anonymously so you don't get any comeback from him legally as all the other people he ripped off will no doubt want to know how to contact him. If he was taking a break online but still taking peoples money for pre-orders, that's him admitting to fraudulently obtaining funds through deception.

I think the lesson you need to learn is not to use these small business's for preorders if you have no experience with ordering with them, its far to easy for them to just take your money sit in it for a long time and then disappear.

[briareos_kerensky]

Recent headphones in general. I don't use them on my own but have to use them at work.
Before COVID I used a pair of old Sony headphones with a standard 3.5" jack; the leather around the padding shedded off during the years, but the padding itself is still there; however they didn't have an integrated microphone, and with every meeting being via Teams, the company procured a pair of wired Jabra headphones.
Within two years the USB cable started to fray, and the padding started to come off entirely. The padding itself was simply glue to the speakers, and shortly after the padding itself started to fall off.

Replaced them with a pair of wireless Jabra headphones, IT no longer stocks the wired model.
You need to connect the Bluetooth receiver and the cradle to make them work; you can't really use the included USB cable because it's like 30cm.
The headphones automatically fade in whatever starts to play, so at every new song, new video, paused song, paused video, or even silence inside songs, you get a 1-second fade.
There's a fancy auto-pause when the headphones think they have been put on a table or lowered to the neck, only that it also triggers on fast head rotations, or when you stretch a bit. If you pause a song "manually", start a video, and the auto-pause triggers, the video pauses and the song plays.
Fed up with these "features", I go to Jabra's website for drivers...nothing. A quick search confirms there are no apps or special drivers for Windows, if you wanto to remove the auto-pause and fade in you need to dowload the mobile app, sync the 'phones, and customise them.
Utter madness.

[Anpanman]

I have a set of business issued wireless Jabra's, fantastic but an older model so doesn't have the fancy pants features.

[Brad]

Dell laptop from work. Decent spec. Put Ubuntu 22.04 on there, it doesn't recognise that it has any fans so overheated and shut down.
abandoned Ubuntu, put windows on. It didn't even have drivers for the Ethernet port so had to usb stick them over. And the machine runs at a locked 0.18ghz. Ffs. Handed it back to IT and grabbed another one. Hours wasted.

[Brad]

Microsoft store:

Unknown layout specified in manifest.

windows 11 upgrade:

Something went wrong.

contact Microsoft support for help. What, so an independent advisor can send me in circles.

MS are an absolute joke. Every part of their corporation. All of it. Without exception.

[briareos_kerensky]

Dell laptop from work. Decent spec. Put Ubuntu 22.04 on there, it doesn't recognise that it has any fans so overheated and shut down.
abandoned Ubuntu, put windows on. It didn't even have drivers for the Ethernet port so had to usb stick them over. And the machine runs at a locked 0.18ghz. Ffs. Handed it back to IT and grabbed another one. Hours wasted.

Dell has gone downhill a lot in recent years. Still better than HP, but a shadow of what they were 10 years ago. I bought a very cheap Dell laptop to keep in the kitchen to watch subs while eating and in a few months of light use the touchpad is jittery and there are times it shadow-clicks.

[Anpanman]

We tend to get Dell simply because their specs are easier to decipher on the website and if you choose well you can get a good price on their outlet plus they do tend to have good performance per £. That said build quality on their cheapest kit isn't good at all with DVD drives made from plastic only slightly thicker than loo paper.

We use HP lappies at work (used to have IBM which was lush), they used to be awful but I had mine replaced last year and have to say I'm impressed, a huge improvement over what they used to have.

[Brad]

ThinkPad only in our house. If they break you can buy replacement parts and fix it yourself as they have a full assembly guide. I swapped my iso keyboard for ansi the other day. Took about 5 minutes.

[Anpanman]

Dell lappies are the same, service manuals are on the website. I've replaced lots of components over the years. My current one has the IR camera so no fingerprint sensor but I have the part code and can get one cheap as chips from Ali.

[Brad]

Didn't know that. Cool.

[gunrock]

Global warming. Copenhagen got 66mm of rain over Wednesday night and Thursday. My garden terrace filled up with water (like 15 cm deep) and it eventually overwhelmed the patio doors, but more crucially the water came up through the floor, via the grouting in the tiles

I couldn't get a pump or sandbags, but got some sand and used some old garden waste reuseable bags to create makeshift sandbags and a polythene barrier from an old mattress. Luckily my daughter was at home, so she could help me mop and put down towels, which gave us enough time to move all the furniture, TV and game consoles out. We ended up with about 15mm of water covering the living room floor. I managed to remove 200L with my trusty Wickes wet/dry hoover, but there was still about 5mm sloshing about.

The garden is saturated, walking on the grass was just like walking on a foam mattress, spongy and slushy.

The assessor came yesterday and got a guy to come at the end of the day and pump the water away. They left an industrial dehumidifier and he took measurements in the walls and the water has climbed up through the plaster about 40cm high on all the walls. So next week workman will break down the stud wall, remove the plaster from the other walls and cut a hole to look under the dining room floor to see where the water went.

Tomorrow 16mm is forecast to fall.

[Yakumo]

Global warming. Copenhagen got 66mm of rain over Wednesday night and Thursday. My garden terrace filled up with water (like 15 cm deep) and it eventually overwhelmed the patio doors, but more crucially the water came up through the floor, via the grouting in the tiles

I couldn't get a pump or sandbags, but got some sand and used some old garden waste reuseable bags to create makeshift sandbags and a polythene barrier from an old mattress. Luckily my daughter was at home, so she could help me mop and put down towels, which gave us enough time to move all the furniture, TV and game consoles out. We ended up with about 15mm of water covering the living room floor. I managed to remove 200L with my trusty Wickes wet/dry hoover, but there was still about 5mm sloshing about.

The garden is saturated, walking on the grass was just like walking on a foam mattress, spongy and slushy.

The assessor came yesterday and got a guy to come at the end of the day and pump the water away. They left an industrial dehumidifier and he took measurements in the walls and the water has climbed up through the plaster about 40cm high on all the walls. So next week workman will break down the stud wall, remove the plaster from the other walls and cut a hole to look under the dining room floor to see where the water went.

Tomorrow 16mm is forecast to fall.

Bloody hell man, that sounds like a right nightmare!