# Amateurs: give much needed advice to the pros! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 24, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456 "2012-08-24T04:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/41 "2012-08-25T18:26:45Z")
Fashion designers: stop designing for women who have the bodies of little boys. Real women are not stick figures with no breasts or rears. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/42 "2012-08-25T20:35:51Z")
Politicians: Whatever marketer sold you on the idea that calling the entire populace thrice-daily for four months prior to the election, would be an effective way to campaign for my vote, was a big, fat liar. T-shirt designers: Wider doesn’t necessarily mean taller. Quit making larger sizes hang so low that they could double as dresses. I’m talking both sexes here. Singers/bands: When you leave out your two most famous songs from your main set, it’s obvious that you’re saving them for a pre-planned encore. That’s not only arrogant, but it renders the “encore” pointless. It’s supposed to be an option, you know, not a requirement. I mean, surely you don’t think I plunked down $200 to NOT hear “Sweet Caroline.” (:)) Web designers: quit putting up obstacles for me to buy shit off your website. Sometimes, I don’t want to go to the hassle of “registering,” and creating a unique username and password, just to buy a pair of $5 ear buds. Or maybe I’m at a place where I don’t have access to my 353 passwords, and don’t want to have to go through the belabored password retrieval process. Give me the option of checking out as a guest! ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/43 "2012-08-25T20:41:18Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > Web designers: quit putting up obstacles for me to buy shit off your website. Sometimes, I don’t want to go to the hassle of “registering,” and creating a unique username and password, just to buy a pair of $5 ear buds. Or maybe I’m at a place where I don’t have access to my 353 passwords, and don’t want to have to go through the belabored password retrieval process. Give me the option of checking out as a guest! Addendum: if I want to find how much shipping costs, don’t make me go 99% of the way through the buying procedure just to find that out. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/44 "2012-08-25T22:21:06Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Fashion designers: stop designing for women who have the bodies of little boys. Real women are not stick figures with no breasts or rears. And give us pockets! We do NOT always want to have to deal with a purse! ---
**Author:** ![kyogi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@kyogi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kyogi)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/45 "2012-08-26T06:08:11Z")
Pepsico/Taco Bell had the chihuahua call Godzilla in the TV ad campaign: “Here leeezerd, leeezerd.” Then a couple years later they have the chihuahua meet the insurance Co gecko in a casting call waiting room, where he refers to it as a gecko. Why in three bloody hells didn’t the chihuahua call the gecko a leeezerd?! It woulda been perfect! These ad guys are supposed to be consummate pros never missing an angle! ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/46 "2012-08-26T06:46:59Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > There’s room on a Blu-Ray for nine hours of HD content. Stop spreading a TV series across five discs. I agree. And as a corollary: Don’t bother releasing something on Blu-Ray if it’s not going to actually be in HD/1080p or have a huge number of extras. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/47 "2012-08-26T08:34:43Z")
Does anyone else kind of want to hear professionals in these fields rebut? How much of it is going to come down to: - cost benefit analysis? - clueless management? - culture disconnect between producer and consumer? ---
**Author:** ![kyogi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@kyogi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kyogi)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/48 "2012-08-26T09:16:08Z")
Ooh, another one. POS system design (electronic registers). I bartended through over a dozen Mardi Gras’ in the French Quarter. When our new Micros POS system required me to hit eleven touch screen options to ring up & cash out a freakin Budweiser, I was ready to quit and find a job in something sane, but realized that was expecting too much. Really, people- 1 button for domestic beer, 1 button to hit "cash & open the drawer. That’s all it should take. This system that required eleven functions was designed by some gradiot that had never had to handle the setting they were selling the system for. Try selling 1000 drinks per hour when it takes that many steps to ring up just one. I just left the register open, made Change on sales and entirely skipped using the system whenever business got good enough to justify what we paid for the damn thing. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/49 "2012-08-26T11:34:33Z")
Sports reporters and columnists: stop using the phrase “of all time.” ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/50 "2012-08-26T15:14:34Z")
> [@campp](#): > > Another sound effect: The cry of a hawk somewhere out there in the “air”. For Og’s sake, stop it with that particular noise! It makes me wince every time they trot it out. > > Edit: Ninja’d! That cry is a re-tailed hawk, and the lonesome, faraway cry of the white crowned sparrow is played each time a character has a pensive moment outdoors. Nothing takes me out of a moment quicker than counting down to bird calls. ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/51 "2012-08-26T15:23:15Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Landscape designers and architects - your majestically composed piece of “art” which has wonderfully clean lines and severely limited plant spectrum looks spectacular in carefully composed magazine photos - but is effective for only about three weeks out of the year. The rest of the time it’s boring boring boring. > > You’re so dragged down by Rules, Color Theory and the like that you’ve forgotten what gardening is all about. And throw in a few natives, wouldja? You’re artists, so context ought to mean something, right? I mean, a bride is beautiful anywhere, but she looks a bit out of place in the grocery store. Save the exotics for accents and borrow from the surrounding countryside. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/52 "2012-08-26T15:26:45Z")
I spent 2 brief years in production for a large coffee company. The cost accounting drove me up a wall. I have always believed that a cost should be applied to whatever caused that cost to be generated. If the machines are tearing up too much product and packaging machine maintenance is where the cost should be applied instead of just packaging. Companies tend to pay more attention to ballancing the books than using cost accounting as a management tool. ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/53 "2012-08-26T17:01:28Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > There’s room on a Blu-Ray for nine hours of HD content. Stop spreading a TV series across five discs. Yes, yes and oh hell yes. I hate that. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/54 "2012-08-26T17:25:46Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > I spent 2 brief years in production for a large coffee company. The cost accounting drove me up a wall. I have always believed that a cost should be applied to whatever caused that cost to be generated. If the machines are tearing up too much product and packaging machine maintenance is where the cost should be applied instead of just packaging. Companies tend to pay more attention to ballancing the books than using cost accounting as a management tool. Yeah! There should be an account number for “frustration”! Then we’d see some optimization. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/55 "2012-08-26T17:38:29Z")
Management’s job is often to make quick & dirty solutions, then force the people down the org to implement those quick & dirties with total compliance and exquisite detail. Good results: management takes credit. Poor results: management blames conditions or operations or sunspots. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/56 "2012-08-26T22:25:51Z")
I have another one: Online ticket brokers: if you’re going to put in a security system to ensure that machines don’t grab up all the good tickets, then make the letters _legible_. I just tried to book tickets and I had to click “get new letters” a half dozen times because there was no way I could read the interlocking letters. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/57 "2012-08-27T02:20:17Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > I have another one: > > Online ticket brokers: if you’re going to put in a security system to ensure that machines don’t grab up all the good tickets, then make the letters _legible_. I just tried to book tickets and I had to click “get new letters” a half dozen times because there was no way I could read the interlocking letters. These CAPTCHAs don’t really do much in any absolute sense, is the messed-up part. Human solving farms in 3rd-world countries can defeat them. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/58 "2012-08-27T06:05:45Z")
How about baseball managers who insist on substituting another player at the same time they bring in a relief pitcher, ostensibly so the pitcher will not have to bat in the previously assigned spot, even though there is zero expectation that the relief pitcher will pitch the next half inning, so you will be pinch hitting anyway, and the other substitute is not a superior fielder. If you can control yourself just an iota you can wait until your team is at bat and maybe the opposing team will have a different pitcher at that time and you can pinch hit with the right person. I cannot ever see making this two for two switch unless you are hoping your pitcher will pitch more than the remainder of the current inning, unless a defensive substitution is warranted. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456/59 "2012-08-27T08:38:48Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Does anyone else kind of want to hear professionals in these fields rebut? > > How much of it is going to come down to: > > - cost benefit analysis? > - clueless management? > - culture disconnect between producer and consumer? Sure. > [@Ethilrist](#): > > Game designers. I realize, guys, that you need to keep the drooling masses from stepping on their dicks and overwriting their favorite saved games, so you need to make us go through the whole “escape, save, this file, yes, YES, dammit, escape” deal to save the game. Fine. I can deal with that. > > HOWEVER. Having danced along with your dog & pony show to accomplish the above, if I want to exit the game within, say, the next few seconds, let me EXIT THE GAME. Do NOT say “Hey, if you exit now, all your game progress will be lost!” MORONS. I JUST SAVED. (Skyrim, I’m lookin’ at you…) This is a programming issue more than a design issue. It’s not **hard** to make the notification not happen for \ seconds after saving, or if you don’t leave the menu, or whatever. What’s the problem then? It introduces extra complexity into the system. Ultimately, the cost/benefit comes down to if you want less bugs, trim off the silly stuff that’s not important. Could they do it? Sure, but when you add a loophole to it not prompting you to quit, then there’s a much higher chance that it won’t prompt you for some arcane reason buried behind 13 layers of code written by an intern when you haven’t saved and then you’ll be very sad it didn’t remind you. Now why they don’t just add a damned “save and quit” button I can’t explain. Anyway, my advice: Horror game designers, I love you, really. You can do atmosphere well. Unfortunately, most of you, well, you kind of expect the player to think exactly like you do. Your games are very scary when I sit there and pretend everything can and will kill me if they see me. I know there has to be some method for recovery, something so that the game doesn’t become instant failure on detection, because that’s not fun. But if you make all of your enemies either: A. Easily dispatched with the right tool or B. Easily outrun, then your games becomes very silly as all of your terrifying monsters become that thing you taunt as you pass in the hall between objectives. You know, maybe make it so you can outrun enemies for short bursts, but they’re faster in the long run. Or you can’t go through loading screens while being chased. SOMETHING. As it is almost every horror game I’ve played started being hilarious the second I asked the question “huh… I wonder if this guy is as tough as it looks.” No. No it is not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateurs-give-much-needed-advice-to-the-pros/632456.md?page=2)