Why should the massive problems have all the limelight? Let’s give some attention to more of those tiny problems which shouldn’t bother us but are infuriating anyway…
Those horrid little plastic things that are used to fasten price tags on to clothing. You snip them off, try and extricate them all from the clothing and the floor, and then they go into landfill.
Publishers changing the cover design of a book series part-way through, so you either have to buy the re-issues of books you already own, or have an irritatingly mis-matched set of books.
People not knowing the difference between it’s and its. I have seen so many examples of this from those who should know better, including recently a headteacher. Simple: it’s (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is, or it has, while its (without an apostrophe) indicates possession. It’s time for dinner. The cat ate its dinner.
Product reviews which give 1 star and a glowing review, when the reviewer actually meant 5 stars. They are skewing the ratings because they haven’t realised by now which way round the stars are. What’s almost as bad are 1 star reviews which are not reviewing the product at all but complaining about an issue with the delivery.
Cuts on your finger which are in the most awkward place to put a plaster (about 99% of finger cuts, then). The plaster doesn’t wrap around properly and then you can’t bend the knuckle. Fluff gets stuck in it, the stickiness goes when you wash your hands and you end up taking it off before the cut has healed.
Recycling bins which are so full of unflattened packaging that the lids won’t close. Hey, it’s great that you’re separating out your recyclables, but here’s a tip: boxes can actually be flattened out and then you can fit more of them in the bin.
Stickers on books. The stickers are either impossible to remove without damaging the cover, or they are easily removed but leave an unpleasant mark, so you know they were there. The worst kind of stickers are those little white rectangular ones which separate into bits and you try to scratch the remainder off using your fingernails.
Do any of these annoy you? If not, tell me what does? I will probably agree with you.
😂 All of the above! Can I add, people misspelling definitely as “definately”? There’s really no excuse in the era of spellcheckers and predictive text.
Glad we are agreed! Yes I think there is no excuse for those commonly misspelt words now that we have the technology to help.
People not knowing the difference between “there”, “their”, “they’re”. Very annoying!
I agree on this one! Also ‘your’ and ‘you’re’.
Haha you are not alone with your list of niggles! Can I also add the clothing label “one size fits all” it definitely doesn’t!
Oh yes, it’s ridiculous to think that one size of anything could fit everyone and anyway all shops/companies have different measurements.
Yes! I agree with all of these! Especially book stickers! You don’t now how often I’ve damaged my beautiful books because of struggling to get a stupid sticker off!
Book stickers are dreadful, I don’t think anyone could disagree with that!
what stickers do to book covers keep me up at night
It’s the stuff of nightmares!
All valid gripes. I hate the way star ratings signify different things on Goodreads and Amazon. They should be the same seeing as they are owned by the same company. 3 stars on Goodreads means that you liked the book, while 3 stars on Amazon means you disliked it and a 3 star review on Amazon actually hurts the author’s standing. I also hate that more people don’t check how each website values their stars before assigning their own rating. A size 5 shoe in one store might not be the same as a size 5 shoe in another store, another country, etc. The same goes for star ratings. We must check before assigning stars. (and yes, I’ve already written a blog post about this issue)
I find star ratings problematic anyway and prefer not to do them! I can tell this is an issue you feel strongly about. Thanks for reading!
I more or less agree with all of these. I don’t want to be too critical of grammatical errors though, since I’m sure I make lots of them myself.
Of course, we all make mistakes 🙂 I think not knowing basic grammar is different to making typos, however.
Yes, that is true. But I’m sure, I also make grammatical mistakes, although hopefully not the its vs it’s.
Agree with them all! Particularly the stickers that you mentioned at the end – TK Maxx is awful for it, and they seem to stick them in the worst part of the product as well – I wonder if the staff get a kick out of it sometimes 😒
Ha, thanks! I never considered that staff might enjoy stickering products to deliberately annoy people… but maybe it livens up the job.
OMG all that you mentioned irk me, one particularly, those price tags on my kids clothes. They have at least 3 tags for me to cut out! Those plastic things around the tags that you mentioned? Those. I. Hate. So. Much. They slow down my whole process of getting laundry done. Grrrr…I love this post, NS!
Aha, yes – I think we all hate those tags, they are awful. Glad you enjoyed the post, sorry it has stirred up your anger 😉
hahahahaa because you’re that good! 😉