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Post by casimira on Oct 12, 2022 14:24:14 GMT
The huge garden center space at one of our big box stores is already filled to the max with Christmas crap. I had to go on a major hunt to find an item I really need for my goldfish pond. So f'n maddening! It's earlier this year than ever before.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 12, 2022 15:28:47 GMT
Yes! We went to our favourite garden centre yesterday only to find it stuffed with Christmas stuff. What a money waster.
I did find a rare cactus for sale though which I bought so not all lost.
Bah humbug.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 17, 2022 13:44:37 GMT
Inadequate attended tills in the supermarket.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 17, 2022 16:49:11 GMT
I was in a big Asda in the UK a few years ago. Grilled a manager about the lack of till staff. It always seemed to be like that whenever I went in. He admitted they work from a computer programme (handed down from HQ) that predicts how many tills they need open at certain times of the day/week/month/year. And how is that working out for you, I asked, nodding towards the long queues. I said you probably have trained staff now on a break or filling shelves or whatever, why don't you be a bit of a rebel to HQ and call a few over instead of blindly following a computer readout? Bless 'im, as I got halfway down one of the queues and was thinking about going to a self-checkout that had just become free, a loud bell rang and after some muffled announcement three more staff turned up. Still only half the tills open though.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 17, 2022 17:11:24 GMT
And I’m talking about Asda.
There are 5 tills but never more than 2 open. The self service is little better with people struggling to get their shopping through.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 17, 2022 18:00:16 GMT
The places that I go to in Paris generally have only one or two manned tills open during the week, with maybe 5 open on Saturday. The dozen or so self-checkouts are usually mobbed at all times. I confess that I resisted the self-checkouts at first but now I prefer them. I even like weighing my own fruits and vegetables because the cashiers do it so fast that you never know if they really got it right. (Actually, I prefer the places where you weigh the stuff yourself and stick the price sticker on ahead of time.) Today I got a very small bonus because the machine would not scan my last item and just told me "put the damned thing in the bin" so I took this to mean that it was free and obeyed. Unfortunately it was small and cheap (less than 2 euros), so I did not make a killing.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 17, 2022 19:09:27 GMT
The regular Carrefour I go to in Spain has a system whereby there are two entrances to the tills. There must be thirty or more tills though. So two banks of fifteen, maybe. There is a monitor at each entrance that beeps up the number of the next till to be free. The till people have to press a button when they are just about finished with the person they're sorting out. The psychological thing though is not only do you not concern yourself you've gone to the wrong/slowest queue, you see the single queue going down fairly fast and feel you'll be served sooner. One of my first jobs as a teenager was bag filling at the till in a frozen food shop. Don't see that much now.
A lot of my life has been spent queueing in supermarkets and it is of interest to see how they do it in the different countries I've lived in or visit. E.g. because I know you are interested, in Zambia the till person is not allowed to 'blip' one item if you buy a multiple and put the total figure of them in. They have to do each one individually, no matter how many you've bought.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 17, 2022 19:31:03 GMT
Even in France, there are some places where they have to scan each identical item and others where they just push a multiplication key. I don't know why. Of course at the self scan, you have to do each item separately...
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Post by mich64 on Nov 18, 2022 1:33:02 GMT
I was adverse to using self check-out fearing job losses or reduced hours for staff but it seems to have sorted out and there are both options at most stores. Walmart was one of the first to have it here. When I have to go there, we do use it now because the store also sells groceries so the clerk lines are always busy, so I am happy to take my 1 or 2 items to the self check-out.
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Post by bjd on Nov 18, 2022 7:09:06 GMT
My local supermarket has a line of about 20 cash registers and 4 self-checkouts. One cashier stands beside them to help anyone who can't figure it out. Of course, it's only in tourist season that most of the cash registers are manned (mostly femaled in fact). I usually go to the place where there is a human unless the lines are long and I don't have much to buy.
But in France there is also a system where the customer gets a barcode reader and does the work as he/she puts the stuff in the cart and then goes to a special checkout where it's paid for. I figure that's the way the supermarket gets the job done by the customer so refuse to do it.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 18, 2022 7:17:11 GMT
Re last paragraph - that makes 2 of us.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 2, 2022 13:04:12 GMT
I received an email urging me to fill in an official online form as soon as possible to get various documents in conformity. So I went to the site and filled everything in and was informed when I clicked 'send' that it is two days early and to come back and do it again.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 2, 2022 13:49:44 GMT
For reasons we don’t know our water pressure is low and that makes the shower automatically default to cold.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 2, 2022 15:54:04 GMT
That is HELL.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 9, 2022 10:07:00 GMT
I’m sure I’ve said it before but it’s mothers and fathers pushing prams, buggies etc. being glued to their phones and not interacting with their children.
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Post by bjd on Dec 9, 2022 10:26:55 GMT
I agree, Mick. I'll add dog walkers to that group -- they don't actually have to talk to their dogs but can at least look to see where they are. But for sure, with small kids it's really annoying to see.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 9, 2022 12:49:35 GMT
I’m sure I’ve said it before but it’s mothers and fathers pushing prams, buggies etc. being glued to their phones and not interacting with their children. I saw some distressing interaction on the MRT yesterday. Mom, Dad and toddler in stroller (age 2 max!) were all glued to their screens. Dad saw something on his phone that he wanted to share with his toddler. The toddler gave a bored glance at Dad's screen and immediately went back his own.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 19, 2023 20:47:01 GMT
People who go for a walk but have to carry a coffee cup with them.
And they they have to get rid of it and some just dump it in the dog bin.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 19, 2023 21:08:16 GMT
My building has a window sill on the ground floor, and almost every morning there are paper cups and soda cans left on the sill even though there is a waste bin directly across from the building 2 metres away.
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Post by bjd on May 18, 2023 8:35:17 GMT
My pet peeve is our neighbour. A complete jerk who never, ever says hello -- not just to us, but to anyone else. Just goes by as though you didn't exist, even if you are right beside him. Adding to this annoyance is that he has not cut our side of his hedge for nearly 2 years. Legally, we are not supposed to do it and last year we asked several times and he just muttered, "when I have time".
As you may know, in France it is polite to say "bonjour" when you start a conversation. I just saw him cutting his hedge in front of his house and stopped to say that I would cut the hedge on our side if he takes the branches to the dump. He kept saying "bonjour" about 4 times until I finally said it too and continued about the hedge. So maybe I wasn't polite but when I saw him, I just thought about the hedge, and was not planning to start a conversation with the guy. His wife and two out of three of his kids are friendly. I don't know how they can stand him.
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Post by whatagain on May 18, 2023 9:26:15 GMT
Neighbours can be a nightmare.
I am so happy we have loveable ones. 28 years ago when we moved in, we had a dog but no fence yet.
So Medoc (...) went for a stroll and left a deposit on the neighbour's lawn. She was really pissed (hihi) and came to tell the story to my wife. Who said she was sorry but the neighbour was insistent, judgemental etc. Un pisse-froid, we say - piss-vinegar ? Well. So my wife was pissed off too.
And i was - for once - smart.
I immediately went to the neighbour, knocked (on the door), apologised, and while she was starting to lecture me again i proffered a bottle of wine, saying how sorry i was, how right she was etc.
She was startled, thanked me, then excused herself and we lived forever happy afterwards.
For the price of one bottle of wine.
Maybe try it ? He cuts, he gets a bittle ? A cheap ine though, let us not forget he is an asshole.
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Post by bjd on May 18, 2023 16:37:00 GMT
He was okay, not really friendly and talkative but at least said hello, when they first moved in but something must have happened to piss him off. Anyway, I offered to cut the hedge and he will take all the branches to the dump.That way he won't step all over my flowerbeds.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 18, 2023 17:54:13 GMT
I just thought about the hedge, and was not planning to start a conversation with the guy. His wife and two out of three of his kids are friendly. The man sounds as though he has something wrong with him. The fact that he was friendly at first, but now won't say hello even when you're right next to him could mean that he's angry with you. But the thing of his repeatedly saying bonjour is quite odd. Do you think he might have had some kind of stroke or something? Maybe you could just straight out ask the wife if you did something to offend her husband. She might say, "He's just an asshole", but maybe there is another explanation. I immediately went to the neighbour, knocked (on the door), apologised, and while she was starting to lecture me again i proffered a bottle of wine, saying how sorry i was, how right she was etc. That was gracious of you. You might have gotten away with just going over and picking up the offending poop, but 28 years of a great neighborly relationship does seem well worth the price of a bottle of wine.
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Post by bjd on May 19, 2023 7:42:07 GMT
My husband is convinced the neighbour is just miserable and unhappy with his life -- he is a nurse who works nights at a centre for autistic people, spends much of his time alone because his wife is at work and the kids are at school.
It's not just to us that he is unfriendly -- other immediate neighbours get the same treatment and have told me that he has never said hello even though our houses are all quite close together.
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Post by whatagain on May 19, 2023 9:03:39 GMT
Hey Bixa, picking up the poop was our first reaction buf it was already done 😉
The fun thing is that we met her last week at tbe supermarket and she talked, talked, talked to us.
I managed to extract myself and was laughing under my beard seeing my wife trying to do the same...
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Post by kerouac2 on May 19, 2023 9:32:23 GMT
(If anybody is confused, the beard thing is a French expression.)
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Post by bixaorellana on May 19, 2023 17:30:48 GMT
We on anyport don't confuse that easily. The context made the meaning clear.
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Post by bjd on May 27, 2023 18:43:35 GMT
Update on my neighbour and the hedge. Last Sunday I spent six hours cutting the hedge, pulling out the brambles, bindweed, passionflowers. All together there were 9 big bags of small branches and garbage. Today I met the neighbour as we were going out for a walk and I asked when he would take it all to the dump. He said he would do so right away, so we took the bags out to his car. As he helped carry them, he saw a couple of other bags of garden refuse and asked about them. My husband said, "Those are not from your hedge." He said, no trouble and took them as well. I did thank him.
After we left, we wondered how long it would have taken him to volunteer to take the stuff away.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 27, 2023 19:47:56 GMT
He seems to have done ok.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 31, 2023 10:39:47 GMT
Temporary road signs that become permanent.
On the road into my town are 5 signs warning me to slow down because of loose chippings following road resurfacing. That was 3 years ago.
Even worse is on the road to my sister in law where the speed limit is reduced and there are 2 big signs informing me that the limit is in place because there is an investigation into a landslip. They’ve been there 5 years now.
There are way too many signs anyway but these permanent temporary signs are everywhere.
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