What is some of your Pet Peeve's

[WinterDeere]

It's obvious the manufacturer never used their own products.

... that's what it basically comes down to. I mean, we've been making cerial boxes and frozen food boxes for what... 100 years? Not exactly cutting-edge science, to where we should still be seeing regular failures in packaging.

There's a certain ration of tear-strip width to connector tie width, which will gaurantee a fail-free pull every time. Companies should have design standards for things like this... it's just too easy to get something like this right, after so many decades of literally billions of similar units made, for there to be any excuse for getting it wrong.

 

[BravoXray]

In the trucking business, we were often times the scapegoat for shipments being late. Driver would get loaded, call the consignee to advise when he would deliver, only to be yelled at because the shipper told them it had been shipped a few days ago. All the driver had to do was to show the consignee the ship date on the BOL, scale ticket or other dated document to prove when it was actually shipped.

My motto was "Bad planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part."

 

[WinterDeere]

In the trucking business, we were often times the scapegoat for shipments being late.

FedEx plays similar games on the tail end of the process. I routinely see their drivers declare packages as "Delivered" the day before they actually show up to deliver the thing.

It seems this occurs when they are unable to finish their route on a given evening, but don't want to get dinged for failure to complete the route. So they mark it as delivered at the end of their shift, and then show up with the thing the following morning.

It creates problems when customers see their package shows "delivered", and then report it as missing, since they never received it. Not an issue for customers who may be slower to check tracking and delivery status, but I'm often waiting by the hour for mine to show up, and receiving real-time status updates. More than once, I've reported a "delivered" FedEx package missing on Tuesday night, just to have the driver show up with it Wednesday morning.

UPS and USPS don't play these games, at least around here. But I will admit, this might be a driver-dependent problem, and others might have the opposite experience.

 

[Shawn T. W.]

FedEx ground, and there home delivery branch are independent contractors, who quite often hire there own drivers ... I had to buy the uniforms and lease the scanner ...

I bought my own Dodge Sprinter van back in '05 and tried that gig ... Lasted 7-8 months, it's a hard way to make a living, at least on my route ... 350-400 miles a day lucky to get 50 packages delivered in a day, I drove pretty much from East to West covering Southern Vermont from NH border to NY border all over the Green Mountains, half were dirt mountain roads ... I paid for the fuel ... Nov - Dec 16-20 hours a day, 6-7 days a week ...

Back then we had to transmit the daily download of the scanner before midnight ... There were a "few" times at around 23:30 I'd scan the last few packages as "delivered" then proceeded to actually deliver them, I hated pulling into someone's drive after midnight, but I got there package there!

Xmas morning I still had packages on my truck that I had not scanned yet, so I went back out at 05:00 ... Got to one house around 07:00 and got YELLED at for being out on Xmas morning, told I should be home with my family ... The guy ended up being nice, and offered me some cookies, but I explained I signed a contract, and I was tired and went home at 01:00 and got a few hours of sleep ...

Sometimes the district manager would scan a package saying it was on my van out for delivery, but I had already left the terminal, people would flag me down saying I had there package ...

 

[NoTrespassing]

A recent peeve of mine is traction control on my Mazda. Sure, I guess it has its place, but going up our steep snow-covered driveway is not one of them. The TC will literally reduce engine speed until I'm stopped on the hill and I have to back down, turn off TC and make another run at it. I figured that out last year and it's scary backing down that hill. It hasn't happened in the awd Ford Edge.

I had to back down the hill in the old 93 Bronco several times as well as the Honda awd Cross Tour. Mainly because I tried to make it up without plowing first. If it snows while we're away from home, we have to walk in and get the tractor and plow.

My cheap Hyundai Accent without TC was better going up the hill than the Mazda with TC.

 

[Oaktree]

I don't even try to use the tab any more. It's much more satisfying to just to the box open. If it is soggy, all the more reason to ignore the useless pull tab. I think the pull tab is some sort of marketing gimmick. It's obvious the manufacturer never used their own products.

That can be said for a lot of products. Autos are a prime example. Bulbs burn out, filters need to be changed. One would think that the designers would make it easy/intuitive to do this maintenance...

 

[WinterDeere]

That can be said for a lot of products. Autos are a prime example. Bulbs burn out, filters need to be changed. One would think that the designers would make it easy/intuitive to do this maintenance...

I just had a PTSD-like flashback to changing gauge cluster bulbs in the crumbling plastic of every Ford ever made, from the late 1970's thru the 1980's. Half the time, the brittle plastic would break around bulb holder, and then you'd be left trying to glue or otherwise jam the damn thing back into the hole.

Hopefully LEDs have eliminated that problem.

 

[Oaktree]

FedEx plays similar games on the tail end of the process. I routinely see their drivers declare packages as "Delivered" the day before they actually show up to deliver the thing.

It seems this occurs when they are unable to finish their route on a given evening, but don't want to get dinged for failure to complete the route. So they mark it as delivered at the end of their shift, and then show up with the thing the following morning.

I don't receive many packages via Fedex, but don't all these companies' devices transmit GPS co-ordinates when the driver scans it as delivered? I know the USPS's ones do...in a couple instances of mis-delivered packages they've been able to locate them quickly.

 

[Oaktree]

I just had a PTSD-like flashback to changing gauge cluster bulbs in the crumbling plastic of every Ford ever made, from the late 1970's thru the 1980's. Half the time, the brittle plastic would break around bulb holder, and then you'd be left trying to glue or otherwise jam the damn thing back into the hole.

Hopefully LEDs have eliminated that problem.

Old Mopars too.
Yeah, theoretically LEDs should last the life of the vehicle, but when they DO fail, they're much harder to replace since they're soldered in. The backlighting for the heater controls on my truck started to fail, apparently there was a bad batch of bulbs since according to what I read on a GM truck forum this was common. Easier to just replace the assembly, was only $50 or so (I kept the old one just in the event I felt like tracking down and replacing surface mount LED bulbs).

In headlight/taillight assemblies it can get pricey if they go bad (not usually the LEDs themselves, but the power supply) but it's often a sealed assembly.

 

[WinterDeere]

LED's operating off 12VDC likely just have a single series resistor, and maybe a capacitor for reducing any flicker. The LED's themself should basically never fail (> 100 years MTTF), and unlike an LED bulb designed to operate off houshold 115VAC, there's no "power supply circuit" to fail on a DC system.

If they happen to use electrolytic capacitors for flicker reduction, that would be the component that fails first (~20,000 hours), but I honestly wouldn't expect them to use those today. There are just too many cheaper and more reliable ceramic alternatives today.

That leaves the resistors, which if well-chosen, should last many decades. But if there's a voltage regulator mishap, that could wipe 'em all out in one big flash.

I blew nearly every bulb both inside and outside my 1984 Mustang about 30 years ago, by bypassing the voltage regulator, while trying to debug a bad wiring harness. It was very exciting and very bright in my garage for about 3 seconds. Live and learn!