What is some of your Pet Peeve's

[dougtrr2]

I am not against technology, in some areas it has made definite improvements to our lives. But I think there is way too many "technology solutions" that are looking for a problem. We are using technology to "solve" problems that don't exist.

Doug in SW IA

 

[ultrarunner]

One problem I encounter is dependency on tech and facing the consequences when things go south.

We were one of the last Hospitals on paper charts…

There was a massive failure at the corp server farm and 98% of our sister facilities were down and anything that could be cancelled or postponed was for almost 20 hours…

We had a slight panic as patients arrived at 5:30 am for elective surgeries and I instructed staff to admit and carry on… we still had analog phones and fax and patient paper charts.

The only thing we could not do was bill or collect payments and my decision was to invoice which is against policy but I’m not going to let a problem on our end inconvenience patients that have taken time off from work, rearranged their lives, etc because we could not process payment at the time of service.

In review we were one of only 2 that were able to carry on..

This would no longer be possible today as everything is tech dependent…

All it takes is infrastructure vandalism to bring everything to a crawl or stop…

 

[kenmbz]

We were at a restaurant once when their computer went down.
Everything went into slow motion and we were waiting for 15 minutes when I called over the waiter.
She explained that they could not take orders with the computer down.
All of us at the table started laughing, all of us computer people, told her to get paper and pen and take orders.
The manager came over and we went over how we would do it and then they started taking our orders.
Amazing how people can become so dependent on a little screen.

 

[paulsharvey]

I know I am really late in this one; I had a project manager once, commercial construction, his pet peeve was leaking garden hoses on the site.... That kinda had me thinking, you realize we are in mud and dirt, and dodging trash every where, and your worried about a dang hose.

One of mine; really struck me when doing a stimulus sidewalk project; guys that are grabbing nail bags and hammers when the concrete truck shows up; dude, you need to be grabbing mags, com-alongs, and shovels; that crap should have been done before you placed the order.

 

[rontaki]

We were at a restaurant once when their computer went down.
Everything went into slow motion and we were waiting for 15 minutes when I called over the waiter.
She explained that they could not take orders with the computer down.
All of us at the table started laughing, all of us computer people, told her to get paper and pen and take orders.
The manager came over and we went over how we would do it and then they started taking our orders.
Amazing how people can become so dependent on a little screen.

Amazing how people sheeple can become so dependent on a little screen.

 

[WinterDeere]

First few ads were cute, but they got old quickly. Not sure how this sells insurance, couldn't even tell you what company they're for without Googling it.

Of all the various insurance gimmicks (Flo, Gecko, Cavemen, Hump Day, Emu), the only two I've truly found funny are the "We have Aunts" and "The Slowski's".

Then I realized The Slowski's were actually Comcast, not insurance!

 

[WinterDeere]

New Peeve: The abrupt and unpredictable changes in tariffs, at the whims of one man. I just won a contract on a job where my tariff costs were calculated to be $316, only to find they exploded to almost $30,000 in the few weeks it took the customer to place their order. In most companies, a surprise expense like that might lead to laying off another employee.

This is all money straight out of my pocket, and out of the pockets of many small business owners, all because one man got into an unpredictable pissing match with another. This needs to end, if small businesses are to survive at all, in this country.

 

[ultrarunner]

Contracts I sign now have added tariff clause as to additional cost or cancelation…

Did a 500k medical equipment purchase and got it in under the wire although some was stuck at customs for a week.

Tariff clauses will become standard just like so many continue to have provisions to add fuel surcharges…

 

[bigtiller]

New Peeve: The abrupt and unpredictable changes in tariffs, at the whims of one man. I just won a contract on a job where my tariff costs were calculated to be $316, only to find they exploded to almost $30,000 in the few weeks it took the customer to place their order. In most companies, a surprise expense like that might lead to laying off another employee.

This is all money straight out of my pocket, and out of the pockets of many small business owners, all because one man got into an unpredictable pissing match with another. This needs to end, if small businesses are to survive at all, in this country.

You're correct;
This needs to end, if small businesses are to survive at all, in this country.
4 of my extended family members each started and own their own small business.

 

[WinterDeere]

Contracts I sign now have added tariff clause as to additional cost or cancelation…

Did a 500k medical equipment purchase and got it in under the wire although some was stuck at customs for a week.

Tariff clauses will become standard just like so many continue to have provisions to add fuel surcharges…

Yep, and that's what I've been starting to do on sales that are both commercial and domestic. But foreign customers don't want to deal with this, and will often walk away from any supplier presenting them with an uncertain picture due to tariffs that could easily change between purchase order and ship/billing date, and government customers can't deal with quotes that might float when trying to put these things into their next budget cycle.

In this case, it was $30k in unexpected new tariffs on a $600k sale to a foreign entity, for which I would have made $100k after material costs... round numbers. If I had gone back to the customer and said, "Surprise! I know I quoted this job before we had tariffs, but your price just jumped up $30k this week!", they'd have probably walked. Their reasoning would be fair, as the sole issue isn't an extra $30k, but the realization that this could change again without warning to some even-higher number.

So my choice is to either eat the cost myself, or chase the tariff drawback program, as you do have a legal right to drawback your tariff expenditures if exporting a product after performing work on it (Manufacturing Drawback). The trouble is, they've made tariff drawbacks so impossibly difficult, the cost to even process a claim through most brokers is higher than $30k. There's presently $8.5 Billion in un-claimed tariff drawbacks due to this, because companies have learned that the cost of pursuing their legal right to drawback is higher than the lost tariff revenue.

I guess that's another Pet Peeve, government programs intentionally designed to make accessing your own returns nearly impossible, hoping people will just give up and cry Uncle!