[News] Things available today that show how lazy we have all become

[southstandandy]

Electric toasters.

I'm old enough to remember having to grill toast.

Oh, and colour TV's. Gutted to get burgled in the 70's but the insurance payout at least got us an upgrade to a colour set!

 

[Eric the meek]

Ready meals.

Go to any supermarket, and you will find aisles and aisles of ready meals, from lasagne to fried chicken, from paella to curry, from pizza to burgers.

 

[essbee1]

Ready-grated cheese.

 

[Questions]

Television remote controls

I made my mum a long split cane rod so she didn’t have to get up and turn over before remotes. She was so lazy.

 

[Mellotron]

Pancake mixture in a bottle. Unreal.

 

[Questions]

Tidy. If she were to move to Wales, she'd clean up.

Or maybe she wouldn't.

The old bird who does my tidy and cleaning doesn’t even charge me.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Phoning people who are upstairs / in the next room.

 

[Eric the meek]

Sat navs.

What's wrong with a good old fashioned paper map?

My wife took an OS map of Brighton into her cub scout group and asked if any of them knew what it was.
One lad piped up with 'I know what it is Miss; it's a paper sat-nav'.

 

[Bakero]

Was talking about Blockbuster Video in Worthing the other day, with a friend who worked there many years ago. Ah, the carpets. The musty smell of stale popcorn.

The idea that you used to have to make a specific physical trip (perhaps even by car with parking and everything) to go and choose ONE film to borrow, and watch. And if it was rubbish, tough. That was your entertainment for the evening. AND then you have to again make the trip to take it back.

That seems unthinkably antiquated now.

I was talking to a class of Italian teenagers (16-18 year-olds) about video shops the other day. Also played them the dial-up sound. They looked at me as if I was an alien.

 

[PFW]

I remember back in the day when a man used to fill up my car for me. Now I have to do it myself, and then time walk into the shop to pay for the privilege. and they call that progression

 

[Brok]

I made my mum a long split cane rod so she didn’t have to get up and turn over before remotes. She was so lazy.

Yes, my first remote was a snooker cue. A bit hit and miss as to which of the four channels available that I was going to be watching next...

 

[BN41Albion]

Cars

I'd agree apart from the fact our rail network is a shambles and laughably overpriced

 

[AnotherArch]

Spin drier . There used to be the household exercise machine called 'the mangle'.

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

The old bird who does my tidy and cleaning doesn’t even charge me.

You'd better hope she doesn't see this - not because of the cleaning comment but because you've called her an Old Bird

 

[Mellotron]

I think one of the most interesting things in amongst all this, is the duelling concepts of;

SERVICE - old marketplace

vs

FREEDOM - new marketplace

Example - back in the day the customer would pay for a service, and the service provider would do whatever necessary to make sure you received a good service. It was clear who was providing the money, and who was providing the service.

Nowadays, a lot of things that are basically big corporations getting you to do jobs they previously had to pay people to do (think self checkouts, think the computer terminals in a bank), are dressed up in the guide of freedom.

I work in financial services, and there is a heck of a lot of "Did you know your client can now do this online? They can now access this themselves!"

Older clients in particular generally have no interest in "doing this online". They don't find it exciting to be involved in the service being provided any more than necessary.

As I get older, I empathise more and more with my Dad's view of old marketplace vs new marketplace. In my view, old marketplace there was a clear hierarchy between customer and service provider. Now it all feels very matey, very equal, "you can be involved in the journey now" which in some cases is just an excuse to get the customer to complete a lot of tasks that really used to be a part of the service being provided and paid for.

Rapidly aging man rant over.

 

[Giraffe]

My favourite topic this.

Where to start. Yes dogwalkers is a good start. Why get a dog unless you have time/energy to walk them. End of.

Easy to open biscuits - its a con people. We used to have many hours of happily struggling to open a pack of biscuits. Now one third of the way down you can rip it open, but then unless you have a biscuit tin you feel you have to eat one third of the biscuit packet. Hence why they did it!

 

[Van Cleef]

Ah the memories, I was one of those as a kid.

Then channel 4 came along. Workload increased 25% overnight.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Was talking about Blockbuster Video in Worthing the other day, with a friend who worked there many years ago. Ah, the carpets. The musty smell of stale popcorn.

The idea that you used to have to make a specific physical trip (perhaps even by car with parking and everything) to go and choose ONE film to borrow, and watch. And if it was rubbish, tough. That was your entertainment for the evening. AND then you have to again make the trip to take it back.

That seems unthinkably antiquated now.

You missed out the step where, having watched the film, Blockbuster requested that you be a Video Friend or somesuch, and rewind the tape ready for the next customer to watch.

It was progress indeed when technology moved on and Netflix would send you a DVD in the post, you'd watch the movie, then post it back to them

 

[Carlos BC]

Sliced bread, lazy. Move a knife backwards and forwards a few times and then you have a slice.

 

[Mr Bridger]

Then channel 4 came along. Workload increased 25% overnight.

You imagine now, channel surfing.
Be like pre season training bleep test.