Anyway, it’s rarely the cardboard that’s a hassle. It’s the damn glued shut bubble mailers, the boxes that are completely shrink wrapped, or have those damn plastic straps around them, or plasic clamshell packaging.
All of those get the chop. The latter often with extreme prejudice.
I used to work in a returns department. We joked that our customers had stock in the tape companies. They would put stuff in a bubble mailer and then run tape around it 20 times, covering every square inch and tight as hell. It was fucking awful.
I almost amputated the tip of my thumb the other day trying to open one of those goddamn clamshells and I was just using scissors. Fuck whoever invented them.
Word of advice get a non folding knife with some girth so not a kitchen knife, Ka-bar or a M3 replica are the best in my experience. Then just stab and pull, the plastic will give and you can use inward leverage on the harder outer plastic.
These are designed for the retailer’s convenience, not yours. Brick-and-mortar retailers love clamshell packaging because it is designed to be both theft and return resistant. It’s literally impossible to open without destroying, so retailers can always point to their “returned goods must be in original packaging condition” clause (rarely enforced, but always there) if they feel like denying a return for whatever spurious reason. And then, the packaging can be made unnecessarily bulky (albeit usually rather flat) which makes it tough to pocket, shoplifting sensor tags are often embedded in it, and opening it in the store to remove the product is pretty damn difficult.
Are you callin’ me out, old man???
Anyway, it’s rarely the cardboard that’s a hassle. It’s the damn glued shut bubble mailers, the boxes that are completely shrink wrapped, or have those damn plastic straps around them, or plasic clamshell packaging.
All of those get the chop. The latter often with extreme prejudice.
I used to work in a returns department. We joked that our customers had stock in the tape companies. They would put stuff in a bubble mailer and then run tape around it 20 times, covering every square inch and tight as hell. It was fucking awful.
I almost amputated the tip of my thumb the other day trying to open one of those goddamn clamshells and I was just using scissors. Fuck whoever invented them.
Word of advice get a non folding knife with some girth so not a kitchen knife, Ka-bar or a M3 replica are the best in my experience. Then just stab and pull, the plastic will give and you can use inward leverage on the harder outer plastic.
Fuck whoever invented them indeed.
These are designed for the retailer’s convenience, not yours. Brick-and-mortar retailers love clamshell packaging because it is designed to be both theft and return resistant. It’s literally impossible to open without destroying, so retailers can always point to their “returned goods must be in original packaging condition” clause (rarely enforced, but always there) if they feel like denying a return for whatever spurious reason. And then, the packaging can be made unnecessarily bulky (albeit usually rather flat) which makes it tough to pocket, shoplifting sensor tags are often embedded in it, and opening it in the store to remove the product is pretty damn difficult.