When you think about how we all live in 2021, it’s just hard to wrap your head around it. The age of advanced technology, social and gender equality, creative economies, possibilities, you name it. So how on earth does it have a place for things like telemarketing and unpaid overtime?!
When someone asked “What has no reason to exist in 2021 and yet it does?” on r/AskReddit, the answers started rolling in and each was more eye-opening than the previous one.
I mean, people are not saying 2021 is totally overestimated, but in many ways, it kinda is. Let’s see some of the most thought-inducing responses right below and be sure to add a thing or two to this list in the comment section for everyone to see!
things-that-have-no-reason-to-exist-in-2021
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Taking 3-5 days to put money back into my account after you took it instantly.
I went to test drive a car recently and the dealership wanted a £500 deposit. It was for the insurance (rather than pay it in event of a crash) but they said it could go towards the car if I liked it. I asked them if I don't like it how long would it be before I got the money back. They told me at least 7 working days. Politely declined and walked out.
The fact that some people still don't have access to fresh water.
Or to close water : having to walk daily more than 10 km to get water from a well
Unpaid overtime
Homophobia. Seriously.
New Zealand is currently working on a bill to make 'conversion therapy' a criminal offence. Hopefully other countries will do so as well.
Why insulin is so expensive
It is not. It is cheap or free in every country but one. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country
Having to call to cancel a subscription you signed up for online
Netherlands: You must be able to cancel a subscription in the same way you started it and cancelling must be just as simple as starting. So 1 click to start, means 1 click to cancel.
Single use plastic
Once upon a time, a lot of items came packaged in glass, paper, or metal containers. Many of the glass containers were collected, washed, and refilled by the manufacturers. People found uses for containers that could not be returned or recycled. Then there were concerns about the environment...yes the environment. Plastic bags were a response to cutting trees for paper. As plastic was light, disposable, and cost less to ship (no return or deposit), manufacturers switched to these for cost and convenience. The idea was it saved trees, fuel costs of shipping, and emissions. The extent of the damage the overuse of plastic causes was not known. Now we are back where we started with environmental impact.
Paying $4.99 delivery fee to the pizza place, and they say DELIVERY FEE IS NOT A TIP FOR THE DRIVER. The drivers use their own cars and pay for their own gas, and they sure as hell aren't getting any of that $5.
Poverty and homelessness
At least in California, a lot of homelessness is caused by drug addiction that caused a downward spiral in these peoples lives to the point of where the addiction was so strong, they lost everything to get their fixes. Need more drug rehab programs among many, many other programs to help curve homelessness.
Fax machine. Some doctors won't accept email only mail or fax. Some govt related stuff too
Good grief, most of ours is online. We can book online, even have online appointments (face to face), renew prescriptions etc. All in a portal called My Health connected to your own medical centre.
TELEMARKETING
I don’t even get any other type of call, yet I still get this s**t daily
I don't answer calls from numbers I don't know for this reason, and now there's been a wave of scam phone calls in the last few years.
Convenience fees being applied when you pay a bill online.
For profit prisons.
Having no idea how much you'll pay for a minor medical procedure
40+ hour work weeks. The technological improvements should have made it so we could have a more leisurely society where we could dedicate less of our lives to pointless work, not so they could increase profits indefinitely for the business owners while we spend all our waking hours on labor that doesn’t even need doing at this point.
The worst are middle managers who expect you to give 100% of your time to your job.
No. They expect you to give 150%, plus sacrifice all your personal relationships to your job. Oh, and they won’t pay you a penny more to do it.
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This only works for people who can get their work done quickly … healthcare, teachers, customer service, etc are careers that do not involve getting things done quickly , they require offering services more than four days a week ..
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If you’re going to act on this, for Christ’s sake figure out how to do it without leaving people behind. Lots of people already can’t afford to only work 40 hours.
Seriously, everyone should be able to live on a 30 hour per week job. Instead people work 60-70 hours and are still poor or other sit in an office doing busy work to fill their 40 hours
Good luck getting people to agree to increasing my wage enough that I can afford to work only thirty hours a week .. I can’t afford my life working 50 fifty hours a week .. four day work week works great for salary jobs where production is the result … it does not work in healthcare , customer service , etc
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37,5 hour work week and liveable wages negotiated through the cooperation of the authorities, the employers' organizations and the unions. Yes, thank you.
If you reduce the working week down from 40 hours per week who will make up for the shortfall in employee wages... You can be curtain the employers are not going to increase the hourly pay rate as they reduce the weekly hours
You aer supposing that people give 100% for the 40 hours. That's not true for most jobs.
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Won't work in some industries. My hubby is a concreter and can't just up and leave after 8hrs. He has to make sure the job is completed first, doesn't matter if he works 5 hours or 13 hours. He also gets paid a day rate, not an hourly rate.
Which should be illegal in any type of work where working overtime is the norm. I'm quite sure your husband rarely comes home at 2 PM because the job was done and his boss sent him home. Because they always have another job lined up.
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In Iceland, they did trials with 4-day work weeks, and productivity INCREASED. (Thinking of it, I should migrate to Iceland)
The worst are the employers that hire you then tell you that you're now a team player and the success of the company depends on you to work as if you're an owner. That should be a warning to anyone applying for a job.
37.5 hrs is a full week here. Anything above is (paid) overtime.
I submitted a request to reduce my working hours from 40 to 30 hrs per week. I hope my employer will agree.. He has to actually because it is my right to reduce my hours. Company can only refuse when there are "very well-grounded important reasons"... well, lets see how that works out 🤨
Maybe because majority of people don't have that luxury and NEED to work 40 hours to survive
Same ammount of time, same wages, more productivity => more profits Not for you, of course. But this is how it worx.
Some people WANT to work long hours and don't mind, I've done 40+ hour weeks before and was glad to for the money. Some jobs *can't* be done by robots, and even if they could it would just send unemployment up and wages down.
E-ticket processing fees. Seriously, do these have any function other than making money for some middle man?
Door to door sales people. If I want lawn care I’ll google it dammit!
We used to have them. But that was back in the 1950's and 1960's. And they didn't try to sell idiotic stuff like lawn care.
I work for USPS. Went to request a day off and the form required carbon paper to copy.
My adult acne
I have noticed that since wearing masks I am breaking out a lot more, especially around my mouth and chin.
Tax software in the US. Seriously should just be a simple form on the internet that takes 5 minutes.
Netherlands: Log in into a secure site. Check what the government has already filled out. Let the program figure out in which way you get the biggest refund, electronically sign the tax form and submit it. Takes 15 minutes, if you're a slow reader. Wait a few months to get your refund in your bank account. No charges, no fees.
Gas stations charging 10 more cents per gallon for paying with a debit/credit card.
The credit card companies charge them what amounts to ten cents on each gallon, or 2.5 percent.
Lousy printers. It's like no one ever tried to build a good one and humanity just agreed they need to be louder than a Lambo for 2 minutes straight before they can print my Amazon return ticket.
Again a matter of watching what you're buying. My old laserprinter just makes a humming noise that's barely noticeable while printing .
Gas cans that seem deliberately designed to not work and that spill gasoline everywhere.
Yep...most can around here have some kind of vapor lock that makes it near impossible to use without spilling. Kinda defeats the purpose. On a side note, love the picture. I love my Jeep Cherokee.
A lot of these are only relevant in the USA, definitely the biggest 3rd world country
Came here to say that too. A lot of the problems mentioned here are very USA-centered.
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ABSOLUTELY !!! But then they would have to probably address the Child Cruelty and sale of women and children (Human Trafficking) that STILL exists and is ignored.
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They forgot Pay Day Loans. They forgot banks allowed to charge 27% and higher on a consumer credit card. Thank deregulation and your conservative sell outs in congress.
Royalty. Why do modern, progressive nations like Sweden and the Netherlands have to have a royal family?
Thank you! I find worship to royals even more disturbing than celebrities! Those are governance structures which have all been banned decades ago and I don't get why ppl who literally do nothing and are wealthy just for birth reasons, while having their diamonds and expensive clothes paid by society, are being worshipped!?
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I'm surprised no one said "cancel culture" or "social justice warriors".
"cancel culture" has a bit of a "mob mentality" to it that makes me uncomfortable, not to mention "guilty until proven innocent". Although I do appreciate people's frustration that this is the only method they feel they have "power" to influence change. As for "social justice warriors"... social justice is a good thing, always has been. Why would we want to stop promoting it? Would you prefer "social inequity warriors"?
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Half of these I agree with, half don't really apply as I'm not American
Do some places actually require you to select race on forms? I've only seen the question about whether you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in Australia, which is asked because those who are, are entitled to certain things or there may be more relevant services for them
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The company "Autism Speaks" is one of them. They don't even support autistic people at all, they just continually call them burdens and even advocate for parents that kill their autistic children. I still can't believe it's not classified as a hate group yet.
It's called mass brainwashing and we are the results
Load More Replies... Today I learned about a High School Senior in my State, who is receiving a $600,000 + sign on bonus for major leagues baseball. THAT PISSED ME OFF ! when we have poverty, hunger, Outrageously priced medicines.....etc. IN AMERICA !!
Another BP article bashing the USA, it’s starting to get discouraging to come to this site. All everyone does here is talk down on the USA and it’s citizens.
Nobody actually mentioned the USA in the posts. Just because a lot of them are specific to the US, doesn't mean it's an article bashing the USA as a whole.
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Noting is wrong with socialism or communism, as long as the country is fully democratic. The thing that shouldn't exist is dictatorships.
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A lot of these are only relevant in the USA, definitely the biggest 3rd world country
Came here to say that too. A lot of the problems mentioned here are very USA-centered.
Load More Replies... ABSOLUTELY !!! But then they would have to probably address the Child Cruelty and sale of women and children (Human Trafficking) that STILL exists and is ignored.
Load More Replies... They forgot Pay Day Loans. They forgot banks allowed to charge 27% and higher on a consumer credit card. Thank deregulation and your conservative sell outs in congress.
Royalty. Why do modern, progressive nations like Sweden and the Netherlands have to have a royal family?
Thank you! I find worship to royals even more disturbing than celebrities! Those are governance structures which have all been banned decades ago and I don't get why ppl who literally do nothing and are wealthy just for birth reasons, while having their diamonds and expensive clothes paid by society, are being worshipped!?
Load More Replies... I'm surprised no one said "cancel culture" or "social justice warriors".
"cancel culture" has a bit of a "mob mentality" to it that makes me uncomfortable, not to mention "guilty until proven innocent". Although I do appreciate people's frustration that this is the only method they feel they have "power" to influence change. As for "social justice warriors"... social justice is a good thing, always has been. Why would we want to stop promoting it? Would you prefer "social inequity warriors"?
Load More Replies... Half of these I agree with, half don't really apply as I'm not American
Do some places actually require you to select race on forms? I've only seen the question about whether you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in Australia, which is asked because those who are, are entitled to certain things or there may be more relevant services for them
Load More Replies... The company "Autism Speaks" is one of them. They don't even support autistic people at all, they just continually call them burdens and even advocate for parents that kill their autistic children. I still can't believe it's not classified as a hate group yet.
It's called mass brainwashing and we are the results
Load More Replies... Today I learned about a High School Senior in my State, who is receiving a $600,000 + sign on bonus for major leagues baseball. THAT PISSED ME OFF ! when we have poverty, hunger, Outrageously priced medicines.....etc. IN AMERICA !!
Another BP article bashing the USA, it’s starting to get discouraging to come to this site. All everyone does here is talk down on the USA and it’s citizens.
Nobody actually mentioned the USA in the posts. Just because a lot of them are specific to the US, doesn't mean it's an article bashing the USA as a whole.
Load More Replies... Noting is wrong with socialism or communism, as long as the country is fully democratic. The thing that shouldn't exist is dictatorships.
Load More Replies...