Pet peeves

Posted

As a senior citizen I admit I have developed some pet peeves.  I wonder if others feel the same.    

I am annoyed that already poor TV programming is supported by more and more commercials per TV hour of broadcasting. Polls suggest commercials per hour run from about 16-18 minutes per hour; sure seems higher to me.  Television volumes during commercials are also supposedly restricted to maintaining the same volume as normal programming.  Does anyone really feel like this is taking place?  Even on cable stations, it now seems the number of commercials have increased to a ridiculous level, producing a situation where we are paying premium dollars to get pumped to spend even more of our discretionary dollars.  That didn’t work out so well for us!

And it seems there’s a new annoyance in town.  Advertisers used to appreciate the concept of market saturation and would either vary or limit their commercials so viewers wouldn’t get sick of them.  Does anyone really need to see another pillow or a Camp LeJeune lawsuit commercial to make an informed choice?  Or maybe how some capsulized mixture of red and green vegetables or purple beets changed their life forever.  Or see some beefy former athlete winking and telling us that “she’ll like it too.”  Enough already.

Another distraction to what used to be deemed normal customer service is the transmission of an email or a text to a buyer asking how they liked a merchant’s service and product before the purchaser even has time to get home from the store.  Hey, I was just in your store five minutes ago buying it; why didn’t you ask me while I was at your counter?  Oh, and why are you asking me 30 questions, one being my family income, when all I bought was a pair of socks?  Do you want to improve service or just cultivate me for my next purchase?

Lastly, it seems every time I make a comment on a social media platform almost immediately I get a response telling me how wonderful my profile is, how I am so admired for my positions on contemporary subjects and how they’ve TRIED to befriend me but it just “doesn’t go through.”  They go on to suggest that maybe I should send them a friend request?

I received a phone call from a grandson the other day asking me to wire money to a lawyer; sorry for your trouble, son, but I don’t have grandchildren – thanks for calling.

Wouldn’t these be great questions for the Department of Commerce or the Federal Communications Commission?  It would give those two political appointees some meaningful work to do beyond just collecting a paycheck.

Dan Schnieders

Jefferson City