We watch dashcam videos a lot. One thing that comes up a lot is a four-lane, two-way street near a traffic-light intersection. Cars are backed up at the light and someone is wanting to make a left turn out of a parking lot so a driver in the outside lane stops short. The turnee edges out and gets creamed either by someone in the inside lane or coming the other way. When I’m in that situation I wave off someone doing that for me with what I hope is a, “Thanks but no thanks,” gesture.
By the same token, if I’m using the diamond lane on the freeway and the adjacent lane has come to a stop, I slow down to 45mph so I have enough time to react when someone inevitably darts into that oh so tempting diamond lane. This really pisses off the yahoos who feel entitled to do 75+ because they can, but fuck you, buddy – I’m not risking a wreck so you can arrive two minutes faster.
What’s been irrationally irritating me lately is when I go to a gas station and their pumps don’t work for some reason. It seems to be something that’s become a lot worse in the last five years or so. I don’t recall them ever being broken without having a little bag over the nozzle or something until say… 2015 or so. Now, it seems like when you go to a gas station, there’s about a 1 in 3 chance that the pump itself won’t work right or the card reader doesn’t work.
I feel like if you’re trying to compete with big lit-up signs advertising your price, I’m not so excited about having to go in and wait in line for a cashier or drive around hoping I’ll find a pump that works. I just get annoyed and go to the next nearest gas station. On Saturday, the third station was the one that had a working pump that I didn’t have to go out of my way for.
I honestly parsed that as “Other’s people’s idea of ordinary is your idea of extraordinary”. But after further thought, that’s basically saying “You have low standards”, which I doubt is what the billboard writers wanted to convey.
OOOOooo. And they are now playing commercials at the pumps. I’m quietly pumping my gas and the commercial comes on and startles the shit out of me. Yeah, I’m a captive audience you assholes.
On those ad-playing ones you can sometimes mute them with one of the buttons along the side of the screen. Second one down on the right seems to be common around here. I get supremely irritated with the ones you can’t turn off and I avoid those stations in the future.
Every once in a while I peep my head outside of New Jersey and learn new things about how the rest of the world pumps gas. Laugh at us if you want for not having self-service gasoline, but the guys who pump it for a living have no time for ads on their pumps so we get sweet silence as the tank fills.
I usually just go inside as the car fills up. Usually just go to the bathroom. I know you are not supposed to do that. I used to be a pump jockey, I have never ever seen a nozzle not shut off or slip out of the tank.
Perhaps that’s the reason for the commercials, drive you away from the pumps and get you inside. But I do that anyway.
I get gas at 7/11 because around here it is the place that consistently doesn’t have video ads (or audio, for that matter). Oddly enough they were the first place I remember that had audio ads some time in the 90s or 2000s but no longer.
When I’m on the road, if a place has unskippable ads, I never get something from the convenience store, and I try to not even go inside to use the restroom unless I have to. There is a store around the corner from my apartment complex that has the ads and it is the only time I’ve left a negative online review of a business, and I of course never went back, even when I need a quick snack.
I’ve seen one not shut off - but it probably was because the pump didn’t have a hold open clip and the person used the gas cap to wedge the nozzle open.
One time when I was traveling, I stopped at a Speedway gas station because it was the only one around. All of the ads on all of the gas pumps were playing all the time. I imagine that’s what it’s like in hell. And that is why I will never go to Speedway again.
Or, possibly, “You’re one of the few people paying attention to things most people consider ordinary, and noticing how amazing they are.”
But I very much doubt that’s what the people designing the billboard meant. And what I think they did mean, in addition to using the wrong words, is actually pretty nasty.
— not only do I not want ads at the gas pumps, I don’t want their idea of music, either.
When a company website has less functionality than their app. If I’m on the website, and am told to download the app to do whatever it was I logged in to do, it’s far more likely I will just not use whatever service or product that company is providing.
How about when the “hold” music while waiting for a customer service representative is configured to play a stupid useless message telling you to go to the company website “Have you gone to our website? Many common questions are answered on our website!!!” (i.e. useless non-frequently-asked FAQs like “How can I buy more of your exciting products???”)
Nope. I’m pretty confident that your website isn’t going to help me with why I have a mysterious charge on my bill or whatever my problem is.
Then they set it to repeat the drivel every 45 seconds (“We’re sorry, but we are experiencing unusual call volume…your call is important to us…have you gone to our website?”)
Then after waiting a half hour: “sorry, but we are unable to answer your call at this time…goodbye.”
Oh boy, “If you had a decent website, I would not be on hold right now.”
Oh, a new one - I had to go to the ER for a minor mishap (cut on my shin that got infected). DON’T send my bill to me on my phone, OK? I want to look at the freaking thing. I guess I’m not like most of the world, I do not do everything on my phone. I certainly don’t do any financial stuff. No way.
Me neither. It’s probably close to a lost cause, but I detest the trend towards making everything be an app on a smartphone. And I refuse to text. Email is the only civilized form of electronic communication, dammit!
It happened to me once a few years ago. I was rearranging things in my trunk about 2 feet away when the pump failed to shut off and started overflowing and pouring fuel down the side of my vehicle and onto the ground.
I quickly shut off the pump and reported the spill to the attendant, who gave me an annoyed look and told me I was supposed to monitor the pumping. (Which I thought was unfair—I was monitoring the pumping, which is why I shut it off after only a few seconds of spillage.) Anyway, I was leading a large group of about 6 vehicles all driving up together for a ski trip, so I let the attendant take care of the spilled fuel with absorbent material, which I thought was fair because the problem happened due to their defective pump shutoff, plus I got charged for the spilled fuel.
In my case, I was using the hold open clip, but it shouldn’t matter how the handle is held (whether manually, by clip, or gas cap). If the automatic shutoff is working properly, it should shut off automatically regardless of how the handle is being held open.
garble Bill garble then press 2 garble garble garble
If you are going to do this, that’s fine, but get your phone shit together so I don’t have to start pressing random numbers. Sometimes, I actually get to talk to someone. Sometimes.
“Leading practice” in this field is not to allow a generic “operator” option. No matter how long the caller futzes about, pressed zero, says they none of the options address your issue, whatever.
Somehow we keep getting experts who try to make this seem reasonable. Thankfully my employer has resisted these recommendations so far.