[Annoy] What's something small that really annoys you?

Forums › Off topic › [Annoy] What's something small that really annoys you?

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MikeB4
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#3465342 27-Feb-2026 09:48

Handle9:

Cheques. Why do these stupid things still exist?

Yes I know that they don't exist anymore in NZ and that is a good thing.

A few years ago we sold our HP shares on the US exchange. The proceeds sent to us by cheque. Went to the bank to deposit said cheque and the CSRs had no idea how to process it. They decided that because it was a significant amount the manager would have to deal with and we had to make an appointment. A week later we go back to see the manager and it takes about 40 minutes and a lot of paper work to do the process. It then took about six to eight weeks for the funds to clear. what a pain in the Gluteus Maximus.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

freitasm

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#3465345 27-Feb-2026 09:54

MikeB4:

Handle9:

Cheques. Why do these stupid things still exist?

Yes I know that they don't exist anymore in NZ and that is a good thing.

A few years ago we sold our HP shares on the US exchange. The proceeds sent to us by cheque. Went to the bank to deposit said cheque and the CSRs had no idea how to process it. They decided that because it was a significant amount the manager would have to deal with and we had to make an appointment. A week later we go back to see the manager and it takes about 40 minutes and a lot of paper work to do the process. It then took about six to eight weeks for the funds to clear. what a pain in the Gluteus Maximus.

I was one of the first Google AdSense publishers in New Zealand, back in 2003. Before they made money transfers, Google used to pay publisher with US cheques, sent via Fedex.

One of the first cheques I deposited was met with some suspicious glances from the teller. She had to ask for a manager approval, and I was told the money would be in my account in a couple of days but if the cheque bounced it could be clawed back, and that could be up to six weeks.

Now is the funny bit: the manager read the cheque, looked at me and asked "What is Google? What do they do?"

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richms

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#3465359 27-Feb-2026 10:24

freitasm:

Companies like Dell, who require you to login to their website when you hit UNSUBSCRIBE on their emails.

It's a dark pattern. It adds friction to the process and makes people less inclined to unsubscribe.

If its not one click in the email and then a confirm on the page that comes up I instead report as spam.

Even if they give me some confusing checkboxes to choose and a button - that is too much.

Richard rich.ms

invisibleman18

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#3465365 27-Feb-2026 10:44

When my brother moved from Hong Kong to Australia he was given the money from his Hong Kong Kiwisaver equivalent - it didn't have to be transferred to another scheme, they just sent a cheque. But they didn't accept cheques in Australia anymore so he then mailed it back to a friend in Hong Kong to physically take it into the bank where he'd left his Hong Kong bank account open for that reason.

Rikkitic

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#3465370 27-Feb-2026 10:53

The banks sure do like to arrange things to suit their own convenience.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Handsomedan

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#3465376 27-Feb-2026 11:16

Rikkitic:

The banks sure do like to arrange things to suit their own convenience.

Yes and no.
Often it's a declining market that costs more in compliance and servicing than it is worth.
I can't think of any business that would continue to throw good money after bad for a small and declining market that makes them no money.

Banking is a service, but it's also a business.

Handsome Dan Has Spoken.
Handsome Dan needs to stop adding three dots to every sentence...

Handsome Dan does not currently have a side hustle as the mascot for Yale

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thermonuclear

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#3465382 27-Feb-2026 11:30

Whinge and you shall receive apparently. This will become the closest Woolworths to me when it opens and presumably the store providing online deliveries to this part of Napier.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/new-woolworths-supermarket-announced-for-napier-in-large-precinct-development/premium/SLLRYOJ3DFAKVEJIZIRCV3EQNQ/

Behodar

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#3465503 27-Feb-2026 15:53

richms:

If its not one click in the email and then a confirm on the page that comes up I instead report as spam.

Even if they give me some confusing checkboxes to choose and a button - that is too much.

I once ran into a site that demanded I create an account in order to unsubscribe.

richms

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#3465509 27-Feb-2026 16:01

Behodar:

I once ran into a site that demanded I create an account in order to unsubscribe.

Ouch. That is absurd.

Seems some that are pricks about unsubbing are game companies that I have given my address to when I took on some free games on epic expecting to only get reasonable things.

Richard rich.ms

Behodar

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#3465512 27-Feb-2026 16:05

richms:

Ouch. That is absurd.

I assume that they've changed it now. This would've been ~15 years ago, when someone I knew decided to "invite" me to LinkedIn. From memory this automatically created a kind of "partial account" with my email address and no password, and they required finishing off the account before you could get into the email settings.

Handle9

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#3465547 27-Feb-2026 18:55

Handsomedan:

freitasm:

Which is the case in New Zealand. Banks no longer accept paper cheques. Even if you get paid from an overseas account. Only electronic transfers now.

100% correct.
This happened some time ago.
They were an outmoded form of payment (promissory notes) and needed to be replaced with a more efficient and secure method of payment. So they were.
I'm not sure my 20 year old kids would even recall having seen a cheque...despite the fact that they were around for a large part of their lives. As kids they wouldn't have used them.

Cheques are apparently still a big part of US life and with the numbers of unbanked US citizens, there's also a big "cheque cashing" industry. Or "Checks" as they incorrectly call them over there.

To put some context around it all property related transactions in the UAE are done with cheques. For renting it’s personal cheques, for buying and selling you use managers cheques.

It means that instead of solicitors coordinating with banks and making electronic transfers physical cheques have to be run around to different parties and held by trustee companies. It’s astonishingly manual and slow.

To make it worse one of the cheques we were given has some form of error on it. We now have to go and physically collect the cheque, take it back to the issuing bank and redeposit the corrected cheque.

It’s a substantial amount of money (six figures in NZD) so it’s certainly worth our time but the entire process makes no sense.

MadEngineer

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#3465711 28-Feb-2026 18:07

Just as I finish checking in on this thread, I sign in to a website and am presented with this message

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Behodar

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#3466068 2-Mar-2026 18:48

My heat pump failing after three years and the supplier demanding $1650 - about half its original price - to fix it. Highway robbery. Yes, ants got onto the PCB and fried it, but that's still a huge amount of money for some electronics.

eracode

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#3466069 2-Mar-2026 18:57

Behodar:

My heat pump failing after three years and the supplier demanding $1650 - about half its original price - to fix it. Highway robbery. Yes, ants got onto the PCB and fried it, but that's still a huge amount of money for some electronics.

Surely it’s not unreasonable to expect the electronics in outdoor equipment to be ant-proof?

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

johno1234

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#3466078 2-Mar-2026 19:22

eracode:

Behodar:

My heat pump failing after three years and the supplier demanding $1650 - about half its original price - to fix it. Highway robbery. Yes, ants got onto the PCB and fried it, but that's still a huge amount of money for some electronics.

Surely it’s not unreasonable to expect the electronics in outdoor equipment to be ant-proof?

That’s what I was thinking. What would they say if it was water that got in?

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