Bug List

1. Undergraduate volunteers almost always arrive late to or even skip mandatory meetings in the lab I volunteer in.
• Why? Because there is no actual punishment for arriving late or skipping meetings, because the graduate students can't afford to fire/lose undergraduates, because the lab's grants are so large that there is too much data processing for less than 30 undergraduates to complete. 
2. Student presenters tend to read directly off of the slides, especially in lab meetings where they are not receiving a grade - they put little to no effort into their presentations.
• Why? Because there is no feedback on presentations, so undergraduates both cannot get better and feel detached from their performance.
3. The motion capture software in the biomechanics laboratory that I volunteer in is very not-user friendly and is very difficult to teach new volunteers how to use.
• Why? Because it has so many bells and whistles that experienced users require of it.
4. To open a bag of shredded cheese, one must tear at the perforated edge on the top of the bag of cheese. However, the plastic never fully rips across the entire top of the bag, and the need for scissors always results.
• Why? Because the perforation only exists on the edges of the bag, not all the way across the top.
5. One of the hinges on my toilet seat is broken, so that the seat can now move not only up and down, but can medially and laterally rotate on the one intact hinge.
• Why? Because I have not contacted maintenance to fix it, because my only roommate left for the summer and I do not want a maintenance man to enter my apartment when I am alone, so I will request maintenance in the fall when my roommate returns.
6. At clubs and bars, bartenders refuse to meet my eyes when they realize I am under 21, and it takes me many minutes just to get a cup of much-needed water.
• Why? Because water is free so I do not tip the bartenders for it.
7. My shower does not have enough flat surfaces on which to put all of my shower products.
• Why? Because my apartment complex ordered the smallest, cheapest showers possible, and because I do not own a shower caddy.
8. The pants, shorts, and skirts sizes at Forever 21 run way too small. I can't even wear a large, sometimes not even an extra large, though I wear a small/medium in most other stores.
• Why? Because they use "Barbie" models - large in the chest and skinny through the legs - instead of "average-size" models.
9. The collection computer at the Gait Rite lab in the Movement Disorders Clinic in the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Institute is excruciatingly slow.
• Why? Because is it very old, because the Gait Rite lab is the fourth of my PI's four labs and therefore his lowest priority. It is also the lab that is furthest away from his office, so he rarely visits and acknowledges problems.
10. Data collections with patients at Gait Rite take about 10 minutes, but I have less than 5 minutes with each patient.
• Why? Because I take patients after they check-in and before they are seen by their doctor but the patients do not show up more than 5 minutes before their appointment time, because the doctors and nurses do not ask them to show up early for their appointments though they know that I need to see them.
11. Every general physician in every doctor's office that I have been to is always running at least 5 minutes late, yet patients are requested to arrive 15 minute early to hurry up and wait.
• Why? Presumably so that the patient are not the reason that the doctor runs late. The doctor may run late because a patient that needed a 45 minute appointment was scheduled for a 30 minute one, so it may be the receptionist/scheduler's fault.
12. My dishwasher's "heated dry" mechanism is broken, so after washing dishes I have to leave the dishwasher open for a few hours so that the dishes can all air dry.
• Why? Because the maintenance man said he could not fix it, so he put in a request for a new dishwasher and my complex' managers do not deem it as important as buying new pool chairs.
13. The large burner on my stove top is broken, so I must heat even my largest of pots on the small burner which takes considerably more time.
• Why? Because my roommate broke it and we are afraid that calling maintenance will result in them charging us for a broken burner, so we keep trying to fix it ourselves.
14. My dryer and washing machine are both so loud that if I am running one of them, I cannot watch TV or listen to lectures in the next room.
• Why? Good question. I doubt maintenance will even how up for a request that my appliances are "noisy".
15. Feminine hygiene products are excessively overpriced and I can't stand knowing that these companies are making way more money off of me than they should be, yet I still must buy their products.
• Why? Because these big companies know that women need these products, so they absolutely participate in collusion and price fixing, though illegal.
16. In today's current political climate, our Congressmen and women and even our presidential nominees are chosen first by money and big business, then by the people.
• Why? Because campaigns are funded by money, and big corporations are those with the kind of money that politicians desperately need. So the only nominees that we the public even see are those that have had money thrown at them by large corporations - so the candidates will owe those corporations big favors if they gain office.
17. In most quick service food chains, some times during the day are busier than others, yet in Panera Bread only one cashier may be working through the long line at those times.
• Why? Because the managers don't have the budget to staff more than on cashier, because they are under pressure from higher bosses to keep expenses low, because the franchise owner/CEO has probably never worked as even a manager in food service and has never seen the reality of the job.
18. I work a physical labor job on a farm taking care of horses. The nature of my job is such that only one employee works each morning or night shift and we work alone, without a boss or any other human being present. We are well-trained before we are cut loose, and every employee definitely knows what is expected of her. Yet, when I show up for my shifts, I find signs that clearly indicate that the other employees are majorly slacking off at work and are not doing the required tasks.
• Why? Because they are not supervised, because the job honestly does not need supervision as long as an honest and common-sense-minded employee is working. However, it is difficult to find honest, intelligent, and young/fit employees willing to work a manual labor job 30 minutes outside of Gainesville.
19. I have to drive down Archer road to Guitar Center to replace my guitar strings every few months.
• Why? Because I play a lot of guitar so my strings erode, and I do not buy multiple sets of guitar strings at once.
20. My horseback riding instructor has lessons every hour on the hour but is always running 15-60 minutes behind schedule.
• Why? Because one rider in the morning shows up 10 minutes late and all of the day's lessons are pushed back 10 minutes. My trainer send out a text to everyone to let us know that she is behind, so another rider who would have shown up 10 minutes late anyway now shows up 10 minutes late to the new lesson time, pushing the whole schedule back 20 minute, and the cycle repeats. There is no punishment for arriving late.

Reflection on the "Bug List"

I honestly did not find this assignment difficult at all. It turns out that there are a lot of things that bug me, and when I began looking for them I saw them everywhere. It helped that I made this list over the course of 4 or 5 days, so I only challenged myself to add 3 or 4 new bugs to the list each day. I actually found the first 5 bugs the hardest to come up with, because I was not used to looking for problems. Once I became accustomed to that idea, the rest of the list came easily.