Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Now selling butter in 200 gram packs instead of 250 rams, same price as it was too!

 

Do 'they' refer to it as 'shrinkflation'? It's been creeping up for ages, not a new thing. I first noticed that tins of soup looked smaller about 3 or 4 years ago, and once I'd clocked that I just kept seeing many products on the sm shelves getting smaller but remaining at the same price - or increasing.
Sneaky, cynical, and exploitative doesn't begin to cover it.

 

Flour used to be 3 lb bags, then 1.5 kg now a lot of places have 1 kg bags price has gone down but not by 33%.

 

I choose mine entirely for the colour. Didn’t care what make. There were several manufacturers producing them at the time. I chose the one with the nearest dealer to me, and strolled in to place my order. The sales person was keen to do the deal (needless to say), but then discovered the next shipment was delayed somewhere. Never mind, he said, we can get you that model in silver. I explained to him that it absolutely had to be the green colour and that his ability to supply same was the sole reason I was in his showroom. He was quite surprised. I guess most customers don’t select a car on colour alone!

 

In 1998 I bought a mini stereo system and had searched and educated myself very well in the technicalities and knew exactly what I wanted. The shop had my preferred model in red in the window and I marched in stating I'd like to have the red one from the window please.

The wave of patronising was rather remarkable, I didn't bother interrupting the sales person's monologue of the various technical aspects I had already checked and chosen, but just went ahead and paid for the thing.

Being patronised by a person selling a thing is a bit of a divided experience. On one hand, I very much like the people to be knowledgeable and passionate about what they sell. On the other, I'm sometimes irritated that they don't even consider that the buyer might actually know something about the matter already.

Retired (in particular, female, I suppose) engineers must have a hard time with the kind explanations of "you see, the red wire goes into the red slot and the green...."

I'm a middle aged woman with scientific/ technical education and some life experience and have been there various times. It's always a bit of a diplomatic challenge to break the news that I'm sort of aware of what a washer is and even if I don't know the English word for the tool in question I might know how to use it.

After all this feministically bent chest banging I must take a reality check and admit that I'm utterly devoid of any car or plumbing related knowledge and a lot more... hats off to professionals every time. In particular, if they are not too patronising.