As I have written before, time is a precious commodity in this day and age.

Even though a day still has 24 hours in it, and each hour still has 60 minutes… it seems like we have less and less time.

I suppose what I find endlessly frustrating is the extent to which all this technology — ostensibly designed to save us time and make life easier — actually ends up taking more time, while making life more complicated.

Take something as simple as ordering some price tags I needed to price my painted stones, when I go to shows and events to sell them.

So, they have them on Amazon — which I use for a lot of things because I’m damn well going to get maximum usage out of my Amazon Prime membership, especially as it relates to free shipping on small orders like this — so I put them in my cart and get ready to check out…

BUT…

”Please confirm who you are by logging in”

Fine. Input username and password…

”Please input the 6-digit code we emailed to you”

Oh, FFS…. Go log into my email, retrieve code and log in. Find shopping cart, already in progress.

(Remember to UN-check other items in cart, added there for a (MUCH) later purchase.)

Wait… no I DON’T want to pay with that credit card. So I have to backtrack to ”payment methods on file” and figure out what’s actually there. Of course, I don’t remember all my credit/debit cards by the last four digits… I remember them by sight, and to a lesser degree by issuer name.

So I head up to my dresser to get my wallet out of my jeans pocket, so I can compare numbers.

What’s really stupid about Amazon’s payment methods page is that it lists all the payment methods you have ever used, going back to the Dark Ages… which, for me, amounts to a list of about 25 cards, 22 of which have expired and become permanently defunct. WHY even keep them listed? And failing that, why can’t I just DELETE the ones that are no longer in existence?

No option to delete from the "payment options" page. In order to delete a payment method, you have to access a completely different part of Amazon, hidden behind a different security check.

So why don’t you just shop locally?

Well, because the three packages of price tags I just paid $11.34 for (with free shipping), would be approximately $22.00 + tax from the town stationery store, PLUS the cost of driving an 18-mile round trip with $4.89/gallon gas.

It's just not viable.

But the most annoying thing about all this — at least to me — is how much of my time was wasted while being "busily engaged" in something that should have been over and done in about two minutes.

And yet? This sort of thing seems to be the norm from online commerce, to a greater or lesser degree.

When you spread something like this out across the many ways we engage with technology on a daily basis, it's not long before we end up wasting an awful lot of that precious time... all in service of saving time!

Rather irritating, if you ask me!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great week ahead!

How about YOU? Does it ever feel like you WASTE more time than you SAVE, with some technologies? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2025.08.18 00:37 PDT
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