DVD Cases and Other Things Designed Not to Work

Have you ever noticed that some things in life just don't work like they should? While I'm not much one for conspiracy theories, I can't help but think that this is by design - that certain things are designed simply not to work. They are purposely designed to be inefficient, non-user friendly, or just plain difficult to operate. With this in mind, here are a few things that have been designed not work.

Magazines

You ever tried to find a page number in a magazine, or even the table of contents for that matter? It's next to impossible. You can't even open a magazine without stuff falling out. What kind of design is this?

Well, the answer, of course, is simple. You aren't supposed to find anything in a magazine - except the ads. Magazines are designed in a similar fashion to commercial television. The only reason either exists is to deliver ads. TV does it by trying to come up with programs you'd like to watch to sandwich between the ads. Magazines operate much the same way, except that they work hard to make it impossible to find what it is you actually wanted to read in the magazine. Obviously there are some exceptions, but try thumbing through an issue of virtually any magazine and not see an ad.

Government

The United States Federal Government is a perfect example of a system that's designed not to work. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The system of checks and balances is beautifully inefficient, and I'm thankful for it most of the time. Because the government doesn't work very well, it can't muck things up too much. The Founding Fathers were wise to design such a wonderfully inept governmental system. Unless you need something from the government, the system is about as close to imperfect as perfection can get. The government is at its most efficient when it's doing nothing at all.

Squeezable Mustard Bottles

This might be a personal pet peeve, but have you ever tried to refill a squeezable mustard bottle? Once you screw off the cap, you'll find a larger opening that I'm convinced is designed just a hair too small to fit a spoon into. So when I go to refill a squeezable mustard bottle from a cheaper jar of mustard I can't do so without making a mess. To me this is by design. If the opening was just a bit wider, I could refill it with no problems. It seems as though the opening is designed to make refilling such a pain that you say, forget it, and just buy another more expensive bottle of squeezable mustard.

Toothpaste Tubes

Every time I brush my teeth I can't help but marvel at the 19^th-century design of the toothpaste tube. No matter how hard I try, I can never get all of the toothpaste out of the tube, which means that I have to buy toothpaste more often.

Instead of having the number of ounces of toothpaste on the label, I think they should put the number of ounces you can get out of the tube.

DVD Cases

I got to thinking about this one after one of my daughter's favorite movies developed a crack.

I love DVD's. I do not love DVD cases. I understand the need to make them difficult to get into. That slows shoplifters down by a few seconds. But what I don't like are those little tabs that you have to push down to get the DVD out of the case. These things never seem to work well - which leads me to wonder why.

The only thing I can figure is that DVD's are not designed to wear out from play. That's one of their biggest selling points. No magnetic heads touch them as in the older VHS tapes. This means that once you buy a DVD, theoretically you should never need to replace it - unless it breaks. This is where the cases come in. I think the reason those tab things are so difficult is that they are designed to eventually crack the inner circle of the DVD, forcing you to buy a replacement. Why else would these things be so oddly designed?

So there you have it. Five things designed not to work, or at least when they do work, they don't work well. Some things, like government, can be broken down into a myriad of agencies and programs designed not to work. Others operate more like insurance companies. They're great at one thing (collecting money) but somehow remarkably inefficient when it comes to others (paying you money).

I'm sure there are other things out there that aren't designed to work. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments section below.