u/MrProsser

This is a long shot because it was not a really popular podcast, but I was wondering if anyone remembers the name of a podcast from quite a few years ago that took the form of the writings of a travel writer on a train that is driving through apocalyptic Britain, each episode dealt with various communities they came across, strange happenings like ghosts type things that are disembodied scientists trying to inhabit the bodies of the people on the train, etc. it was definitely a bit of a comedy podcast.

I am looking for a basic manual typewriter. The make and model don't really matter to me. Even if it doesn't work well, I would be happy to try to get it back into working order. I have lots of solvents and like to work on things. I thought I would go onto Marketplace and see a few from people cleaning out garages and basements, but it was devoid of them.

I am just curious to know if I am the most petty, obstreperous person in the world, or if there are other people like me. I also just want to vent my spleen.

So first of all, this is not a criticism of anyone doing delivery for Uber Eats. I am not complaining about that. This is criticism of Uber Eats, the corporate monster.

I ordered a pizza. It came, it was fast. The person who cut it clearly touched the pizza cutter to the pizza but didn't do it with much gusto, because it was indented, but uncut. I just wanted to lodge a complaint saying it wasn't cut well, and that someone might want to improve that. But, when I tried to use Uber Eats help, the bot just gave me a list of intents, and did not have any flexibility. No option matched, and I got annoyed. Maybe I am crazy, but it annoys me when they limit the options and give no mechanism to say "It isn't any of these, let me fill in a text box".

Anyway, bitter man that 0I am, I looked online and found a page called "Another order issue" which lets you start a chat when the listed options don't help. My problem: I couldn't find this in the app, I had to do a Google search to eventually find a chat that wasn't just the bot. Also, the chat didn't work in Firefox mobile browser, there was no text box to type in, I had to move to desktop complaining at this point.

Now, the one bright spot. After complaining in chat, and telling them multiple times that the little order issue was now not my main concern, that I had some helpful feedback about Uber Eats help, they eventually said they would pass it on to management to escalate. Of course, I had to tell them directly that I knew it was a lie that they could not do this, because this is what they initially tried to say, but because I had pestered them so much in the past I knew they could pass it on, and they eventually broke down and passed it on to management.

Am I crazy to expect help from a company? Everything I encountered feels like it is meant to put up barriers to annoy people into not persisting with their complaints. The Gen AI they use is a prime example. It limits what help you can easily get directly after an order. To anyone who isn't a complete jackass like me, these would probably prevent escalation. I understand that this is potentially a benefit to Uber in the sense that people will accept crap from them, but it definitely doesn't seem to be help. It is more people management, where the goal is to manage complaints and hopefully make them stop.