Microwaves are nonsense

You'd think that, after more than sixty years, we'd have pretty much figured out the basic design of any standard household appliance, and yet almost every kitchen in the developed world still plays host to the scourge of modern electronics that is the microwave. While everything else gets progressively better with each revision (or at least, more consumer-friendly) microwave ovens are somehow the same under-developed piles of crap they were twenty years ago, despite new models getting churned out with surprising regularity. Does nobody trial this trash before it makes it to market?

The thing that irritates me most, I think, is wattage. How is this still not standardised yet? I pick up the back of a microwave meal, and it'll give me instructions such as:

“Heat for 3 and a half minutes (700w)/2 and a half minutes (1000w)”

Well, what if my microwave is 800w? What then? Do I heat it for 3 minutes? 3 minutes 10? Or is my meal simply not compatible with this microwave, and I should have picked up something else? Imagine getting a new kitchen fitted, and when it came to buy the oven you were told “well, this model heats food up at 180°C, and that one over there heats to 260°C” you'd think the world had gone mad, and yet we continue to accept the same bullshit when it comes to our microwaves.

I'm sure some of you are thinking “but a microwave's heat is adjustable” and while that may be true, that still doesn't make you right. Take my last microwave, which had a rather helpful dial which went from LOW POWER to FULL POWER. I ask you, what use could this possibly be? What is “low power” in this scenario? 5%? 10%? Presumably it's not 0% (or NO POWER), so then, is the middle point on the dial 50%, or is it closer to 60%, assuming that the power scales linearly and not logarithmically?

This issue is avoided somewhat on my newest microwave, which allows you to adjust the power in clear 20% intervals, but I still would much rather it tell me how much raw wattage it was going to blast my food with rather than having me stand there and work it out by hand (although, if all food required a basic level of numeracy in order to access it, the world would probably be a much more educated place, but that's an argument for another time.) And while I may now at least have an idea what percentage of power is being utilised, I still don't know what the figure is, because I don't even know what wattage my microwave is to begin with!

That's right, I have no clue as to my own microwaves strength! While a minority of units print this info on the door (and to those designers that do this, the eighth sphere of heaven clearly awaits you) but almost every machine I've seen has no indicator on it whatsoever! The manufacturer simply expects for you to commit this information to memory straight after purchase, or otherwise expects you to keep the manual handy for your perusal every time you want to cook a god damned meal. When I’m ’round a friend’s house, and need to makes some food, if I try and ask what wattage their microwave is, they look at me like I’M the weirdo.

And while I’m calling out company’s for their shitty microwaves, I would be remiss in not mentioning the bane of my early adulthood; yeah I’m looking at you, Tesco. You sold me my first microwave, one of your cheap own-brand monstrosities, that incredibly couldn’t even fit one of your own-brand packets of rice upright in it. Yeah, somehow you produced an appliance that was in conflict with your own food line? How is that even possible, what were you using to test it with, one of your competitor’s products?

Oh yeah, and after about 18 months, I was using it to cook a burger and it started shooting arc-lightning at it. Now, I know it had undergone some heavy use, what with half a dozen of teenagers using it for practically every meal, and never once cleaning it out and all, but if your product turns into a failed Nicola Tesla experiment after a year or two of (mis)use by your target demographic, maybe you shouldn’t be selling it? Just a thought?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, screw microwaves.

«Back to "Rants"»