Are there things you don’t like? I think everyone would have to say of course there are and some of these things we are just forced to live with. I was alive before the internet and when it came into use I was very excited, but found that downloading software with the technology in use at the time was really impractical. You would have to spend all night trying to download a small software program and hope the connection held, so you didn’t do it very much. I hated to download software at the time, even though there was some I wanted. Fast forward to now. There are plenty of videos which I would like to look at, but this has really been ruined for me and many others by the fact there are often long commercials put in front of them we are forced to look at before we can get to the video and many have no way of skipping them. I noticed when I went to YouTube many of the videos, forced you to watch the same 1.5 minute commercial every time you loaded one. It was enough to turn anyone off. I don’t know if the commercials were tailored to the user or everyone sees the same ones.

One thing I don’t like is going into a parking lot with narrow parking spaces which are so narrow you can hardly open your door without hitting the car next to you, it is a recipe for disaster as I found out one day. I had pulled into one of these tight spots carefully and slowly opening my door as to not hit the van next to me and when I got out and started walking to the store and I heard a loud bag. The van driver had come out and was getting into her van and had slammed her door into the side of my car making a nice dent and was about to pull away. I stopped her and she asked me what I wanted. I said lady you just put a dent into my car and she said it was noting a little soap and water would take it out. We are talking about a dent, one which probably cost about $500 to take out and paint. Some people just don’t care what they do. By the way she had an old beat-up van and I guess dents in it didn’t matter to her.

I was in the store the other day, it was a supermarket and I went to pick up a few things. There was a sale on something my wife told me to pick up and the bottles of the item were on the very top shelf and were moved far back. They would have been out of the reach of anyone except for a 7 foot NBA player. I have seen this happen quite often and there is usually no one around you can ask to get the item. I am asked every once in a while to help out a woman by reaching something there is no way they can reach themselves. One would think there must be some way the supermarket could put the popular items within reach of everyone. It should be lesser desired items on the very top with more commonly used items within the reach of everyone and sale items also within reach of all.

I don’t like going to doctors who pack their schedule with far too many patients. I had this one doctor who put so many patients on his schedule you would always have to wait hours past your appointment time to see him. When you went to the desk the women working there were very surly. I remember one time they put me in an examination room and I figured well, the doctor should be here soon. I sat in that room for an hour and asked a nurse what was going on and she said the doctor would be with me any minute. After another hour I complained loudly and found out the doctor had forgotten I was in there. Needless to say I don’t go to that doctor anymore.

Automobile dealer’s service centers used to be much worse than they are today. This is one area which competition has forced improvements. I remember taking one of my cars to a dealer, because there was a problem with the transmission. He kept the car for several days and when I got it back, nothing was fixed. This was warranty work and in those days dealers hated that, because they didn’t make as much money. You had to go back several times and sometimes even contact the factory representative before you could get the dealer to fix anything. On top of that only the dealer you bought the car from would take it in, so you couldn’t go anywhere else or they would tell you to take it back to the dealer you bought it from. Today you get coffee and donuts and pretty quick repairs when possible, so I do have to say this is a great improvement.

I hate to have to correct an error made by the bank, it is always a problem. The other day I made a credit card payment online. I do this through the bank and they send the payments to the proper companies, well usually. This time they sent my credit card payment to the wrong place. I couldn’t figure out at first what had happened. They said I must have done this. It just so happened they sent the money to another card which I haven’t used in years and only keep as a spare for an emergency. I told them I would never send a payment to that card and they kept insisting I must have. Finally after getting someone to dig through the records they recognized they did it and I was able to get the money back. It reminded me of the time I was in a bank which had only machines and in the center was a woman at a round counter. The man in front of me went to take money out of the machine and got a slip saying he had received the money, but nothing came out. He went up to the woman and told this and her reply was “impossible.”

Some things I hate are not as serious as others, but none the less annoying. An example of this is trying to play a game online which requires team play. I remember playing spades with three others and my partner kept complaining and then began to call me names and I was really getting very angry until he said something which made me realize I was playing with a kid, a nasty kid who was there only to insult others. I don’t play games online anymore. Not only that, I found out the other two players were cheating by telling each other their cards by cell phone.

There is a lot of things to dislike today, but also a lot to like and in total while employment is down giving people a hard time to make a living, there is a lot more people have today than they did when I was a child.