Products Made By People Who Clearly Never Use Them

Remember CDs?

It was easier to break into the Pentagon than open that plastic wrapping.

Who thought that idea up?

Too Dry

"I swear that people who design some shampoo and conditioner bottles have never tried to use them while wet."

danarexasaurus

Assessments

"Elementary state assessments. They are the most obtuse, poorly written, unrealistic questions on earth. They enrage me. They are clearly written by people who either have zero experience in elementary education or haven’t had any in a decade or so."

meadow_chef

"I have a BA in English and couldn't figure out one of the answers to my child's third-grade ELA state test practice. I spoke to the teacher about it and she sounded so defeated about the testing. There's no way to prepare children for a test when the questions and answers are so poorly written that the students, their teacher, and the parents can't pick the correct answer."

DistractedHouseWitch

Cheap and Expensive

"A few years ago we wanted a coffee maker with a slightly larger carafe. The only 14-cup one we could find at a reasonable price was branded with Drew Barrymore's name. Whatever, we bought it. It was the worst kitchen device I've ever owned. The interface to set the clock, program it, etc. was absolutely baffling to use, never seemed to do the same thing twice."

"The instructions were apparently written by whatever guy at the factory had a cousin who'd seen an American TV show once. And when it actually did somehow make coffee, it came out shriekingly hot, to where I would put a couple of ice cubes into my travel mug when I left for work just to get it down to drinkable temperature."

Fabulous-Quality-282

Flip It

"Those who make the 'pull this flip to open' on plastic packaging of cold cuts."

MissNatdah

"Similarly, the people who make 'resealable' packages of food products where you have to cut it open in a certain place, but cutting there either results in: A) the package still being sealed closed, or B) ruining the internal sealing zipper. I have this issue with the frozen dumplings I buy and no matter what I do, I have NEVER been able to reseal the package as advertised and have to resort to a chip clip."

pls_send_caffeine

Punch a Hole

"The 'push here to open' spot on Kraft Mac and Cheese."

coop_doop

"Whenever I get a different brand I just punch a hole in the same spot out of habit. It’s about exactly as hard to do as with the Kraft ones. So they might as well take out the perforating step and save .001¢/box in the production process."

Reaper_Messiah

Why do they want to keep our Mac and Cheese from us?

Give me my meal!!

Tearing Sheets

"Those toilet paper holders in public toilets that cut off at two sheets."

theshortlady

"Same area: those paper towel dispensers that require a two-handed pull, commonly leaving you with two little torn-off triangles of paper in your hands."

repowers

Useless

"Zebra printers. I swear Zebra customer service is useless. I've had to call the help desks for the specific companies I've worked for because the Zebra CS is just like 'Huh!?'"

monotoonz

"We wrote our own internal manuals for how to setup, manage, and troubleshoot Zebra printers. It includes helpful information like 'Do not call Zebra about this issue, instead, see Appendix A' (which is screenshots of conversations about how it is is a known issue and the resolution should be coming shortly (dated 2016))."

001235

City Life

"Maybe a bit off-topic, but in a meeting with a former colleague of mine, the person in charge of the metro for a nearby city admitted that he had never used the metro. Not that he didn’t use the metro, but that he had never used it in his life, even once. I suspect that this kind of thing isn’t uncommon for government services."

KireGoTI

"Similar story. A lifelong friend of didn’t even know we had a Metro until a recent expansion meant she had to drive a different way into her office. She works for the city council."

TheKingMonkey

Warn You

"Hospital beds. From the standpoint of the person who has to push it around and mess with rails that get caught in the mattress and plug it in with a long dirty cord that gets mixed up with another random cord that no one knows its purpose. No retractable cords so they constantly drag on the ground and try to trip you when pushing the bed."

"Brakes that are in the most awkward position that you have to invert your knee to reach with your foot. And worst, the screeching, ear-piercing alarm that they emit to 'warn you' that the bed is not locked. Hospital beds are obnoxious."

Agitated-Effort3423

Help Please

"Customer-facing software. Developers should be required to hire grandmas under the explicit condition that if grandma can't look at a menu option and decide what to click without giving up and calling the help desk your functionality has failed."

Puzzleheaded-Bat8657

I can't even begin to get into software options.

It brings back too much PTSD.