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You can either just read through this page by scrolling down from here or click one of the links below to jump to that part of the page (useful if your mouse hand/scroll finger/something else is getting sore) and just to save anybody from having to over exert themselves further , you can click the word "TOP" at the end of any section to return here. Greedy Telecommunications Companies Product Designers Toasters Australia Post - liars ODD SOCKS SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S HOSPITAL SYSTEM SBS On Demand TV Scabby Product Manuals

First off the rank - Greedy Telecommunications Companies.

Because we don't make a lot of phone calls, we had a fairly cheap mobile phone plan covering two mobiles, which was wandering along nicely and suited our usage. Then last August (2019) comes a letter increasing the price by 25%. Now the plan pricing hadn't changed in a few years, so we lived with it. Come February 2020, greedy telecommunications company cancelled our old plan and put us on a new plan and a further 60% increase in cost (although they magnanimously gave us a $10 a month per phone credit "To help you transition smoothly" - transition to what - more expensive plans? - fucking tossers). Included was a mediocre data allowance, but there would be "no excess data charges in Australia", just slowed data speed if we went over our allocation. But wait for it, LESS THAN 30 days later came another letter and guess what, we've decided to rip you off for another $100 PER PHONE (per month) if you go over your data allowance - profiteering or what? As an example of how money hungry they are, 6.64 MB (yes MB, not GB), cost me $13.28 in this last bill, that's about $2 per MB. Both letters started of with "As part of the commitment to simplify our products and blah...blah...blah...bullshit...bullshit...bullshit". I know what I think and it has nothing to do with "helping the consumer". Well, dickheads, people on a pension (which are well below the poverty line in Australia) are not being helped by your rank greediness. If it wasn't for the fact the wife likes to talk to the children and grandchildren on the phone, I would be telling said company where they could shove their phones and they can do it sideways to boot. TOP

General rant about product designers.

Have you ever had some kitchen appliance or utensil that is either impossible to clean properly because of small cavities/spaces that are impossible to get anything into or looks like it was designed to be operated by somebody with two left hands? It is about time that the "people" that design your everyday utensils and appliances were made to use and clean them a minimum of 100 times before they get to market. And while we are on about designers, who is the total fucking nitwit that designed the vacuum cleaner with the exhaust or blow side of the system facing the same direction as what you are trying to suck up? I won't name the, oh bugger it, it's a Pulman wet and dry vac. TOP

Toasters

When, oh when, is somebody going to make a toaster that actually makes toast properly? We've had the $19 cheapies from the supermarket that burn one side while hardly colouring the other and we (currently) have a $100+ toaster that isn't any better. In fact it's worse. We sent the first one back because it broke within 5 minutes and got a different brand. That was replaced because it was no better than the $19 one and the replacement cooks the bottom half of the slice and not the top half, pops up when it feels like it (usually after incinerating the bread) or won't lock down. Just as well I don't eat much toast or there could be a flurry of shiny metal things flying through the air around here (in fact, I gave up eating toast because of this useless piece of junk). TOP

Australia Post Loses Medical Equipment and then lies about it not having been received by them

My wife is in dire need of two operations, one to replace a hip and another to replace a failed knee and is incapable of taking anymore than a couple of steps without assistance, so we ordered a wheelchair. This we did at the beginning of March (2020) and got a tracking number with a delivery date of the 6th March. The 6th March came and went but no wheelchair arrived. So Australia Post was rung and asked where it was and after a few days we were told it was nowhere to be found. A subsequent call to the supplier resulted in another one being sent and again, a tracking number was supplied with a delivery date of March 31 to 2 April. Guess what - 2nd April came and went and again - no wheelchair. Australia Posts own tracking site even said it was "On time" for delivery. Again, another call to Australia Post, with a request to speak to a supervisor, the result of which was we were told that they didn't have it and that they had never received either of them. If they didn't receive either of them, why did Australia Post's own tracking site show a time and date that they received it at their sorting facility? And how come I received an email from Australia Post (while I was on the phone to the supervisor) indicating that they indeed did receive the wheelchair in spite of the supervisor blatantly lying about having never received it? Either Australia Post is the most incompetent postal service in the world or there is rampant thievery going on within the postal service. Yes, I know there are delays because of the Corona virus, but to lose TWO wheelchairs? It's not as if they are that small they could fall down the back of something. An update: several days after writing this, one wheelchair turned up, looking like it had been run over by a truck. You would think that at the rip-off prices Australia Post charge to deliver stuff, they would take a lot more care with stuff that doesn't belong to them. TOP

ODD SOCKS - GRR!

Odd socks? Yes, your thinking "Oh, the ones the washing machine eats". Not this time. Being a cheapskate pensioner, I used to buy cheap supermarket brand work socks, but they only lasted 6 months before achieving papal status (all holy holey), so, although I should have known better, I decided to buy some supposedly "better" branded ones (in 3 packs). Well, that was a mistake. Oh, they lasted longer alright, but you would think, being from one manufacturer and in packs of three, they would all be the same length. Not a chance. Out of two packs of three pairs, I ended up with six pairs of socks, all different lengths. I'm not talking a 1/4 inch (~6mm) different, but up to 2 inches (50mm) different. Quite obviously, the manufacturer has no idea about quality control or just doesn't care. And just to top it off, when I went to ring "Customer service" earlier this year, the prerecorded message I got was along the lines of "Unless this is an emergency, try again another day". Just another example of an Australian company (Hanes Innerwear Australia Pty Ltd) that has no idea what "Customer service" actually means. TOP

SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S HOSPITAL SYSTEM IS SHIT

Unless you have bags of money, don't expect to get the medical care you require in South Australia in any sort of timely fashion. As mentioned above (the Australia Post rant), my wife needs two fairly major operations and has done so for the last six years or so. Well, we finally got a date for the first one (early October), but no sooner had we got that, it was pushed back a week (I have my thoughts on why this might have been so, involving golf, but I could be wrong). Ok, shit happens so we rearranged things for the new date and in a surprise phone call a few days later, an earlier date became available. Great, maybe things are starting to move in the right direction. Don't fucking believe it! After 5 days of prep, 3 days of not taking some vital medications (that resulted in increased pain levels), 2 seconds (yes, literally 2 seconds) before we were to get in the car and drive the 200 odd Km to Adelaide, comes THAT phone call "Your operation has been canceled to a date to be advised". What is wrong with these people, don't they have any idea of the damage they are doing to peoples wellbeing, both physical and mental, when this crap goes on? That's 3 - count them - 3 - different times this all could have been fixed and saved a lot of distress, the air was a very dark shade of blue around here for several days after that phone call. To give you an idea of the process we had to go through, once a date had been set, we had to go and get a 'pre-admission' check 6 weeks before the operation. This involved the afore mentioned drive of ~200 Km to Adelaide to be at the hospital at 12PM. X-rays, blood tests, talk to the Ward Nurse, talk to the anesthetist and various other people, repeating the same thing over and over again. Don't these people talk to each other? This was, we were told going to take, oh, about 4 Hrs or so, which would have meant driving back in the dark. Not going to happen we told them, we are leaving at 3.30PM whether you lot are done or not (I get night vision blindness and can't drive at night). I mean, for fucks sake, most of what we went through could have been done over the phone or at the local health centre. Talk about a dysfunctional system. To be fair, the actual on the ground staff (the nurses etc) did a great job of getting us through this check-up in a timely fashion after we explained the problem and arranged for some things to be done outside the hospital so we could get off by 3.30PM. You may ask why didn't we arrange to stay overnight in Adelaide and drive back the next day - we were going to. But, the only two people we knew who could get into the house without being ripped to shreds by the dog to feed him and the cat weren't available, so we had no choice. Come the day before the operation, we had to ring the hospital between 1.30pm and 4pm to see if it was still going to happen. Obviously, who ever thought up this system of doing things has no idea of what it is like to live a great distance from hospital and get everything arranged in a couple of hours plus drive for more hours to get there. We had arranged to go the day before as we had to be at the hospital at 8AM and it is just as well the accommodation provider understood and didn't charge us any cancellation fees. So now we wait and see if the next date we have been given (late October as I write this) goes ahead as scheduled. Addendum, Dec 2020. The 4th date in late October nearly didn't go ahead, but after a lot tears and tantrums, the wife finally received a new hip and now (7 weeks on), she is up and almost ready to run a marathon. Part 1 complete, let's see how part 2 (the knee) goes. While I'm on the subject of our fucked hospital system, who was the puerile dickhead that classified hip and knee operations as "elective surgey"? Nobody in their right mind goes "I think I might have my hip replaced for the fun of it". These sorts of things are caused by disease, ageing and accidents, there is nothing "elective" about it. May this prick suffer from something horribly degenerative and debilitating sooner rather than later (nasty you say? So what I say, I'm more than pissed off - remember, I'm old and grumpy). TOP

Website designers - SBS On Demand TV catch-up

Being as my internal clock seems to be getting screwed up more and more lately (I blame daylight saving - stupid idea), I decided I might have a lazy relaxing afternoon watching a bit of the idiot box (yes, I know there's nothing on the free-to-air channels - why do they bother), so I promptly plonked on to the SBS On-Demand website, only to find some juvenile fuckwit of a website designer fiddler has beeen there and totally screwed it up for ordinary people. Whereas the "Programs A-Z" button is still there, which you would think would list programs in, oh, I don't know, A to Z order, the phantom website fucker has put these "tiles" ("tiles" are what you put on the floor and walls, dickheads, not computer screens) that you have to swipe left /right/up/down to scan through, along with a "load more" button at the bottom of the page. So instead of being able to go to section 'Z', you have to sit there and starting at section 'A', swipe until your bloody arm is almost falling off to get to section 'Z' (I didn't bother - I got a couple of swipes in to section 'A' and decided SBS can shove their TV channel, their website and fucking Streaming services up their fucking arses and choke on it). Ring them up and complain I hear someone whistling - you do it. I've been there, done that. All you get is their patronising AI phone answering system suggesting how you can make things better - I'd like to make things better by shoving several kilovolts up the AI's internal wiring (and their website contact/complaints system is even worse). Needless to say, I am now far from relaxed...... I do have to put my hand up and say that at one time I did work in the television industry and a lot of what you may have heard was true (sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - ahh...the good old days), but it it would appear the calibre of the technical/marketing/idea's staff is sadly lacking these days. TOP

Scabby Product Manuals

Not having bought much in the way of consumer appliances in a while, I don't know how long the following has been going on, but geez, Scrooge has nothing on the misers who produce user manuals these days. The last time I bought anything, you got A4 or even A3 sized pages with text large enough to read from 100 metres away, sometimes you even got a book as big as a decent magazine. In order of purchase over the last 2 weeks (mid May 2021) - Western Digital 4Tb external drive, Kingston 64Gb USB stick, Samsung tablet with case and "screen protector" and a free gift with a recent order, an S530 Bluetooth Eardud Earbud. I'm not going to say anything about the quality of any of the above (oh, really?) as I really haven't had them long enough to form an opinion (well, I have the start of one on one of the above I may share later) but first up, the "manuals" that come with them - all of them - Superman with his better than average vision would be struggling to read any of them without an electron microscope so how these wankers expect anyone of average vision to read them is beyond me. Lets start with the Western Digital drive. Most of us are well aware you take it out of the packaging, plug the (hopefully supplied) cable in and get on with using it - so a no brainer. But I do like to read the warranty conditions occasionally - this lot spend more time trying to weasel out of their legal responsibilities in what we used to call "the small print" over 30 odd pages of nano sized print (in many languages) than doing anything else. There are two small drawings about how to use the drive though. Now for the Kingston USB Stick. On the back of the packaging are the warranty "details", but because Australia has somewhat better consumer protection laws than most of the rest of the world, they stuck this micro-miniature scrap of fold out paper to the back (in an almost impossible way to open it) with conditions specific to Australia - again in print so small you can't read it even with generally available magnifying items. Ok, the Samsung Tablet has an electronic manual on it but, assuming you've never had one and/or know zilch about tablets, how are you supposed to find it? The scrap of paper that comes with it that is supposedly the quick start guide is worthless as far as providing any useful information and that assumes one has a big enough magnifying glass to read it in the first place. The case we got to put it in is, well, a case, nothing special but the screen protector (from the same maker as the case), that's another story. Again, "manual" so small as to be unreadable and those bits one could decipher didn't make any sense at all, to the point we ended throwing the bloody thing in the rubbish after it ended up with more bits on it than fleas on the dog. Total waste of $50 dollars on that piece of Cygnett rubbish. As for the Bluetooth Earbud, well, lets just say that as it was free, if I can't find a proper, readable manual or instruction sheet for it, I wont feel any guilt about dropping it in the nearest rubbish bin*. The bit of paper that it came with is in print even smaller than any of the above and bad quality print at that. Scanning it and trying to blow it up only made it worse. * I might actually put it under the wheel of the car and see if it makes a satisfying 'pop' as it meets it's maker. TOP