Dumb Times

The Fucking Inconvenience of Convenience

You know what I’m talking about

The convenience store is called a convenience store for a reason.

You buy your stuff and leave. No one cares. No one questions you. No one asks for an email.

If only everything could be as convenient as a convenience store.

But it isn’t.

Because in this super technological bullshit world we live in, most stuff we do is as time-consuming as climbing a mountain in a pair of roller skates.

Booking Online

Has anyone ever been through a booking process in under five minutes?

And I don’t mean something you’ve already set up like renewing your porn channel subscription or college library card.

I’m talking about a hotel room or a train trip. A purchase where you have to navigate through a myriad of stupid options each as confusing as the last.

Why would I want insurance on an hour-long train trip?

That was just one of the options I faced yesterday trying to book a train to a job interview 80 miles away.

Since when was insurance needed to go to an interview? Or was this special insurance? If I didn’t get the job, would they reimburse the fare? Pay my salary?

Of course not.

This was insurance in case I got robbed, knifed, or shot. Got blown away by the mafia on a rural train line between two rural towns in rural France. Where the most interesting thing that happens are chickens blocking the line.

Yet there was an option for this. Plus options for hotels, hire cars, and restaurants.

By the time I finished, and then downloaded the app to receive the ticketless ticket, it had taken me over an hour.

I could have just gone to the ticket office and bought the ticket. Only I can’t, because they closed the ticket office down years ago.

Shopping Online

I don’t buy anything online any more.

I’m sick of wasting my time waiting for deliveries that don’t come.

It shouldn’t be a problem as I work from home. But if I know there’s a delivery on the way, it destroys my day. I can’t concentrate as I’m always looking out of the window or checking my phone.

Then the panic sets it. Have I missed it? Has it been delivered next door? Left on the pavement? Have those kids stolen it again?

It’s too much stress. And even when you get your parcel, there’s that crushing disappointment that it’s nothing like you thought it would be.

And curse yourself, once again, for not making the trip to the shop, however inconvenient it might be — or so we’re told.

Job Applications

When did getting a job go from simply being difficult, to a total head fuck.

When did recruiters start demanding

DO NOT ENCLOSE YOUR RÉSUMÉ. USE THE APPLICATION FORM PROVIDED.

Why?

I’ve just spent the best part of a year piecing together the wreckage of my life onto two sheets of paper. Now you want me to rewrite the whole thing out again. Plus a 5000-word essay into why I want the job.

I can tell you that in three words.

BECAUSE I’M FUCKING SKINT!

Sorry, that was four.

Telephone

I’ve never liked speaking on the telephone. Not even to my mum. Speaking on the phone to official people always brings me out in a cold sweat.

But at least in the past there was someone there. Now there's just a code!

I don’t know how many times I’ve got through to my bank or phone company and been asked for my confidential code.

‘My what?’

‘SORRY YOUR RESPONSE ISN’T RECOGNISED. PLEASE TRY LATER…GOODBYE.’

Parking

I was in Dartmoor over the summer. A national park in the South West of England. It was high season, there were loads of people, and the parking meters were ringing in the money.

Only they weren’t.

Dartmoor is run by The National Trust, a stuffy organization that owns most of Britain’s national parks, homes, and castles.

It’s a quaint old venerable institution that hates change. Which is a good attribute when you’re in charge of ancient monuments. So it was no surprise that all their parking meters were coin-only.

Normally, I’d respect this. Except this was one of those situations where the old ways were incredibly inconvenient.

Since Covid, no one carries change. You can pay for everything with a card. Pay for a pint of beer, a blowjob, a line of coke with your Mastercard. But not a National Trust car park in peak season on the hottest day of the year.

Result: a crowd of very angry men rummaging around their car for change while their children and wives melt.

No one would care if there weren’t signs everywhere saying

DON’T FORGET TO PAY — WHEEL CLAMPERS IN OPERATION!

That changes things.

That makes you feel on edge.

No one wants to spend the night on Dartmoor on the hottest day of the year because your car has been clamped.

That would be very fucking inconvenient!

Thanks for reading. If I’ve inconvenienced you, more interesting stuff is located below