h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Customer service systems that make it difficult to just say 'thanks'. When your issue has been solved by these email support services, if you hit reply to just thank the operator, you get another 'your query has been logged' type email and you are probably increasing their workload!

"I say chaps, there is a thread specifically for this problem. Would you mind awfully taking it over there and let get back to hating things pettily here? "

Do you have the link to the thread? I'm intrigued what the problem could be. I suspect its going to turn out to be something annoyingly simple.

PH: Having a problem that nobody can reproduce on their computer, the problem escalating to stress proportions and then vanishing.

Oh, and I consider the matter closed. I will direct people to the appropriate thread if it rears its ugly head again.

PHotD: Problems that seem to go away and then come back. Anybody who can help me with my Daily Deals problem should go here: http://h2g2.com/forums/A148907/conversation/view/F19585/T8311443/page/last#P110901254

PHotD: Amazon Customer Services. I posted my problem as a general query, but my online chat started with a Kindle customer support rep who had to transfer me. The next person had somebody from customer services phone me. Cue techno-muzak on hold (another PH). I was transferred to another Kindle customer support rep. By now I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

Credit where it's due, Whaleed (the rep) was very helpful. He couldn't resolve my problem, but he escalated it with a fault report to their technical people. He's also going to email me the Daily Deal titles and prices until the problem is resolved.

It feels like Amazon deal with customer queries the same way they work out book recommendations: if the problem (book title/description) contains a particular word, it's a match regardless of what the problem or book is about.

I myself like the music itself. But I hate the constant interruptions in the middle. Instead of pleasant musical tones I hear "your call is very important to us, please continue to hold."

Stand. On. The. RIGHT.

Stand on the RIGHT!!!
Sho/Flo 1++

Contacting someone with an enquiry and getting a response that doesn't answer the question. I'm in the Amazon Associates program and I want to include links in my book blog. I asked whether a link to, say, a paperback would receive credit if someone bought the hardback (or Kindle) version after clicking my link. The response doesn't come anywhere near answering my question. I'm hoping it's an automatic response, although it doesn't look like one.

Anothe PH - people who use the term 'disgusted' inappropriately.

My internet access was down yesterday. I was disgusted

Website logins which take you to a home-page instead of returning you to the page you logged in from . This happens when I want to read a 'members only' article, for example on the Which? website. So I have to then use the back key to return to the story and then refresh before my logged in status is noticed and the hidden content revealed

My car's steering wheel.

The car manufacturer's logo isn't located centrally on it, but at rest and pointing straight ahead, it sits about half an inch high. I have a Vauxhall and the badge is circular. As a result, when manouvering the car in tight spots, the logo wobbles around off centre.

I hadn't noticed until today. Now it has become really distracting.

It wasn't a petty hate yesterday.

PP.

PH of the day: watching a war film, or anything with a military theme where no one has told the actors to wear their berets correctly (or to get their hair cut). It often looks like I'm watching a movie based on an army of Frank Spencers than a team of trained professionals.

An army of Frank Spencers could do a hell of a lot of damage, mind you!

my mum and brother used to go crazy if there was a war film on if I was in the room, or my dad. Or worse: both of us. In the end it was verboten for us to say anything at all

Also, when trying to recreate the look of an era, the mistake is usually made that everything in the scenes is stuff manufactured in that era, whereas of course we don't and never had everything brand new. In fact, even more so in the past, things were made to last and replacements were expensive, so it was common to have a house full of older things.

Conversely, when you see them reading a letter or a newspaper and the paper has been made to look old and "period". It was new at the time though.

Regarding berets, it was often an indication with African armies as to who had trained them. The Libyan and Ugandan armies were always wearing berets correctly, reflecting their British training. Cuban trained armies looked like they were wearing a cowpat whilst American trained armies looked like they were trying to make their beret look like a peaked cap. Italian trained armies tended to have a bird feather stuck in their ear.

Why a bird feather?