January 9, 2020 | David Chung

People Share The Worst First World Problems They've Ever Faced


If you experience first world problems, you're still one of the lucky ones. Yes, they're annoying, but first world problems really aren't problems at all—they are simply minor inconveniences that, compared to serious problems that less fortunate people in other societies face, are essentially insignificant. Here are some first world problems that people from the internet have shared online—perhaps their obnoxious stories will help you become more grateful about your own situation.

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#1 Too Much Food

There was too much food in the fridge already, so I had no room to put my leftover food. Also, I ran out of Tupperware to put last night's leftovers in because they are either dirty or full of other food in my fridge at the moment. I had to take one out of the dishwasher and wash it by hand. And then when you're hungry, none of it even looks good. I have a fridge full of nothing to eat.

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#2 Hard Jobs

A friend hates his job and shopped around for other ones. He received a couple of offers but doesn't want to change because he'll have to work harder.  He knows he could be making more somewhere else that's way closer to his house, but his current job lets him get away with so much that the thought of changing and actually having to really work for eight hours sounds awful.

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#3 Above It

I was working at a coffee shop when a friend said she really needed a job so she could live on her own. I offered to get her in here and her response was "I'm soooooo against working fast food." She's never worked a day in her life. She thought she was above working minimum wage even though we were in college and she never held a job in her life.

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#4 WiFi Problems

I have a friend who lives in a house that's so big that they need three WiFi extenders. They complain about their internet every time because apparently it's still to slow even with the extenders. I mean, some people don't even have access to the internet. Some people don't even have homes. Sometimes you just got to appreciate what you have and leave it at that.

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#5 Cubicle Queen

There's nothing to do at work, but I still have to look busy. It's such a strange feeling, spending 40 hours a week rotting in a cubicle so I can make enough to enjoy my weekends and take the occasional vacation. They say to do what you love but honestly, I don't even know what that is. So, until that day comes, I'll maintain my reign as the cubicle queen.

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#6 The Electric Garbage Can

The motor burned out in my electric garbage can so now it's just a normal garbage can. What's an electric garbage can, you ask? Have you ever opened a garbage can by removing the lid with your hand or stepping on a foot pedal to pop the lid open and thought, "I'd rather wave my hand in front of a sensor repeatedly just to have the garbage can lid open halfway and then snap shut like a rat trap? Also, I have all these batteries and nothing to use them for." That's an electric garbage can.

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#7 Tight Spaces

My late grandmother once refused to stay at a luxury rental apartment because it didn't have a bellhop. Also, on another occasion, my in-laws came to visit us in Amsterdam. Their hotel was too small so they demanded a different room. They got the room but the view wasn't as nice, so they demanded yet another room. But of course, a big enough room with the view they wanted wasn't available, and we got to hear all about it. The Amsterdam part is important. Space is small everywhere, that is just how it is.

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#8 Vacuum Distress Call

A friend and I were driving around one day when he got a call, from his vacuum, that it was stuck in his house. It had driven off into a shower stall and couldn't climb the ledge to get out. There are kids starving in Africa, and he got a distress call from his vacuum. And people say the American dream is dead.

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#9 A Second Boat

Where to park their second boat. The guy was upgrading his boat but whoever was picking up his old one hadn't come in time leaving him with two temporarily. Hard times. This actually reminds me of my dad. Having three cars and a motorcycle means he's run out of space, so he has to store it at the marina. "Man, I have so much stuff that I have to pay someone else to store all of it."

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#10 Making A Compromise

I ALWAYS swore I’d never work in a fast-food job. After moving far from home and getting deeper into the red while job searching, I took a fast-food job. It sucks, but a mature grown-up takes what they can to make ends meet. You can always find something better once you have a stable income. This is still a first-world problem though because I was complaining about my situation even though I was still able to get a job. There are a lot of people out there who are barely surviving.

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#11 The Netflix Dilemma

I'm hungry, but there's nothing to watch while I eat. Or rather, there are tons of things to watch, but if I start watching a new show I'll want to watch it to the end and I'm not sure which one to pick. Sometimes my food gets cold while I'm trying to find something on Netflix. Can't be a movie. Too big of a commitment. Can't be something new, I'll have to pay attention. Has to be familiar and quick. Where did Archer, 30 Rock, Scrubs and Earl go? Am I really going to have to do The Office again? And I just finished P&R again.

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#12 I Bought It

I make enough money that I can buy most "normal" things I want. Anything I can not afford is going to be too expensive to expect to receive as a gift. I'm also rather particular. I wanted a new kitchen mixer. I did my research, picked out a model, etc. THAT's the kitchen mixer I want. Not just some rando mixer. So I won't ask for it as a gift; I'll just save up and buy it for myself.

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#13 Blinker Laziness

When I make a turn but it wasn’t a full enough turn to make my blinker turn off, so I have to manually turn it off. So now, when I think a turn possibly won’t shut off my blinker, I don’t lead as much into the turn as I normally would. I come as close to a 90-degree turn as possible to avoid turning that sucker off manually.

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#14 Group Text Problems

Trying to look something up or watch something on your phone and a group text about nothing keeps interrupting. I love my in-laws, but the one thing they do that drives me crazy is absolutely everything has to be a group text. They treat it like social media. Fortunately, we talked about it and they leave me off group texts now, but for whatever reason, my wife doesn't seem to mind.

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#15 Mandatory Maid Service

My significant other will sometimes admit that she doesn't like the high-end Airbnb large homes we rent because they don't have room service and someone to come and make the bed each day like a hotel. But with a large family, it's always more affordable to just rent a whole house than to get multiple hotel rooms.

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#16 Arguing With Siri

I got in an argument with my car because it couldn't understand my voice commands. To be fair to the car, I got harder to understand between all the cursing. "Hey Siri, you're a fat freaking sack of freaking dog poop and I freaking hope and pray you to get what you deserve, you useless lard!" Then, it goes, "Sorry, I don't know how to help with..."

#17 No Amazon Prime

When I want something from Amazon and it isn’t available on Prime so I have to wait a few extra days for shipping. I'm currently waiting for dog medicine on the three-to-five business days option. Which is it? Three or five? Amazon tells me when my stuff is three stops away and these other sites can’t lock down 72 hours?

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#18 Rich Man's Desires

Former electrician here. I was on a site of one of Australia's richest men and his pool had to be re-dug out after finishing as he dived in the deep end and hit the bottom the first time. That, and he said he wanted to get the heating system fixed so he could get the water to his desired temperature in 35 mins (that's how long it took his chopper to get from Sydney to this property). He could disembark the chopper and dive right in and know it would be perfect, every time.

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#19 Stocking Up

We went grocery shopping and found a bunch of meat on sale. We bought so much that we had to store some of it at dad's house in his deep freezer. It was a pain in the butt to have to walk next door to get some out. I miss living next to my mom and dad. I also miss living a minute drive away. Now I have to drive a whole ten minutes!

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#20 Just Look Busy

I was the acting chief for the last two years since I was the person with the highest seniority left in the office, and I’m only a few years removed from college. My new supervisor just started so he doesn’t have enough days to take off any time during the holidays this year, and I’ll actually have to make an attempt at appearing busy.

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#21 Turkey Surplus

Every year, my work gives everyone a ham. Also every year, I get a free turkey from the store for buying too much food. I currently have two turkeys, and I'm about to have three hams in my freezer. This happened to me for years, I always got the free turkey from the grocery store and because we never host the big Christmas dinner, it never got used.

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#22 Technological Inconvenience

Recently, I was coming home from work and I was out of my fancy flavored bubbly water, so I decided to stop at the grocery on my way back. I realized that I had left my wallet at home; no big deal, "I'll just use my phone to pay," I thought. Nope. My phone was on a three-percent battery charge and apparently, Samsung Pay does not work at that level of charge.

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#23 Ruined Home Theatre

I overheard a wild one at work. This guy was complaining that he hears the rain on the roof of his home theater, ruining the experience. That's why my home theater is a separate concrete room within the structure of the house so it's completely soundproof. Duh. That's just how the architect explained it to me when the house was built.

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#24 Cart Jerks

It was a really windy and rainy day and people were being jerks about leaving their carts just wherever they pleased. I remember being in the middle of pushing up 10-12 from across the parking lot when I saw someone "do me a favor" and leave their cart up top by the door. Well, about 30 seconds later, a wind gust picked up and the cart turned and started heading full speed into the parking lot. I literally watched from about 50 feet away as the cart flew full speed into a parked car.

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#25 The Stages Of Sock Gifts

I feel this goes in stages. Kid: Getting socks as a gift is super disappointing/upsetting because you wanted a toy/video game/whatever and gifts are your only real avenue to get this stuff. Young Adult: You are dead broke and appreciate the new socks you desperately need but can't afford. They are like, the best gift. Successful, middle-aged adult: Don't buy me socks. I know the kind I like and I want them all to match. I make enough money that I can afford nicer socks than I would likely receive as a gift. Socks are bad again.

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#26 Gas Station Antics

Another time I was working at the gas station. A guy came up and said, "How much to fill up my car?" Like, I have no idea dude. He was easily in his 50s and probably filled up a million times. I told him $50 and then if there is any leftover, I'd just refund him. Of course, it wasn't enough. He came back up and yelled at me, saying "It's still not full! How come you didn't tell me more?" I said okay, let's put $10 into it. But he had already gotten his $0.40/gallon off so I could only do the $0.03/off. He was furious and yelled at me for being so stupid. I told him to please go to customer service and they can deal with him.

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#27 Vacation Drama

I was on vacation in the Amalfi Coast waiting for a private boat to pick us up to go to Capri. We arrived at the pick-up spot five minutes late but were actually 10 minutes early because the person who booked the boat knew we would be late and lied about the pickup time so we didn't miss it. Queue a huge argument about whether that lying was a terrible thing to do.

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#28 Cable Conundrum

I got a new cell phone on Tuesday. It has a USB-C port. All my charge cords are micro-USB, so I had to make a late-night emergency run to the store to get new charge cords and was then upset that the store doesn't carry woven thread cords. They just had plastic-coated cords. It did come with a charging cord and wall plugin but I wanted two cords and the free cord was only three-feet long which doesn't work well with my set-ups.

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#29 Darn It, Alexa

Sometimes my Wemo switches will disconnect from my Alexa. In the morning, instead of laying in bed and saying, "Alexa, fan off," I have to get out of bed in the arctic wind and turn off the fan. Also, sometimes my Alexa misunderstands when I say to turn off the lights and I have to ask twice. I shouldn't have to ask twice.

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#30 Moving On Up

A year ago, I was in a cubicle pondering the purpose of my existence, wondering if life is truly as meaningless as it seems. But then I worked with someone to help with my resume, update my LinkedIn profile, started working with recruiters, and got a new job. And now? Well, due to an incredible stroke of luck, I can now think those same thoughts in a windowless office with a door.

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#31 How Nice For You

I bought the Philips Hue lights. They change colors and brightness on my fan through my phone. I also bought the smart dimmer switch and used the sticky back to put the dimmer against the side of my headboard. Well, sometimes I'm too cold or too relaxed to roll over in bed, so I installed the free Google Home we got in my room. Now, I just say, "Hey Google, goodnight," and my TV turns off with my lights.

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#32 Poor Porsche

I spilled coffee on the seat of my Porsche so now I have to take my wife's BMW until the detailing place gets the stain out. Probably gonna be three whole days. God. I also have Alcantara seats and they are more of a pain to clean. It depends on the color of the Alcantara though, black and dark grey are pretty easy to clean.

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#33 Living Like A Pig

I spilled a protein shake in the microwave (I hate cold milk, sue me) and it’s high up on our fridge so I can’t see inside. Fast forward a couple months, I’m microwaving popcorn and it’s not happening... plus it smells like burnt meat gone bad. I take the oven down and it’s chock full of dead, cooked maggots. I'm such a pig.

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#34 A Meme Accident

Last night, while laying in bed, I dropped my phone on my face after I ran out of memes to look at. I actually chipped a tooth dropping my phone onto my face whilst lying in bed because I excel at doing goofball things like this. It hurt a little, and not just my pride... Memes cost me a pretty pricey dental fix.

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#35 Missing O2

I'm currently experiencing it. My phone data provider is down for some reason so I can't mess around on my phone at work. On the plus side, now I know that my battery is fine, I'm just on my phone too much. On the negative side, I can't check my train times as I'm walking to the station. Please, for my sanity, come back O2!

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#36

The apartment I moved into earlier this year opens right onto a busy street, so package deliveries are basically impossible unless the driver thinks, "Hey, this three-dimensional building might have a back side that's less busy." So I started having everything shipped to my downtown Chicago office which worked great until the building security started turning away all thirrd party Amazon delivery drivers because their cheap companies wouldn't update their building delivery insurance (a thing I did not know existed). So now, all Amazon orders have to be delivered to an Amazon Locker pickup two blocks away, which doesn't work for larger items because the lockers are only so big.

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#37 Underperforming Mercedes

The wood and leather steering wheel on the Mercedes S Class heats up much slower, and doesn't get as hot, as the all leather steering wheel on a Mercedes E class. I learned this when the dealer gave me an E class loaner. It's very upsetting to know that my hands aren't getting as warm as quickly as they could be in this cold weather.

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#38 Starbucks Tantrum

While sitting at Starbucks, I watched a girl get irrationally upset that her app to order wouldn't work and she had to actually walk up to the counter. Then, she got even more upset that there was one person in front of her. I bet five bucks her phone was set to auto-connect to Starbucks WiFi, but she didn’t sign into the router.

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#39 The Beach Life

I used to live on the beach and two first world problems happened. 1) I couldn’t keep up with the dust created by beach sand coming into my apartment so I had to hire a cleaning person, and 2) Sometimes the waves were so loud I couldn’t sleep with the windows open. Rough. I know. Now, I live in a neighborhood where my windows stay closed because the police helicopters are noisy.

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#40 I'm "Working"

I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks from now when I don't even need to pretend to work. At my job, from December 15 to Jan 2, all leadership is on vacation and there is little to no work coming in. I schedule meetings for my colleagues and reports to watch movies in the fancy meeting rooms that the big dogs usually have booked up. The only reason we are there is in case of emergency, which has never happened, because nobody is working, and emergencies usually happen because someone was working.

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#41 Champagne Scars

So I literally just got back from a friend's baller wedding, where lots and lots of champagne bottles were popped and sprayed throughout, especially on the last night. The cousin of the groom who was heavily involved in this said to me, "Dude, I have cuts all over my hands and fingers from popping so many bottles."

#42 Powerlifting Problems

I bought a bunch of shirts and suits from a Savile row tailor. I had a good connection, but they were still expensive, more than $10,000 total. Let me tell you something about a properly tailored suit and shirt: it is one of the most comfortable things you can wear. Not only did I look amazing, but it felt like I was wearing cozy pajamas. But then I got into lifting and now nothing fits.

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#43 Super Fancy Water

We got a new water filter at work; it makes beautiful clean water, hot water, sparkling water and cold water. It cost the company about $6,000 for this high capacity machine. There are only seven of us working here and almost everyone is complaining about it. It’s too expensive; it’s too big; it’s too noisy; the blue light is annoying. It might not be the biggest first world problem ever but it just happened.

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#44 Environmentally Unfriendly

You know those 48-packs of 12-oz water bottles, the kind you take to your kid's sports game or read about some celebrity sending thousands of them to disaster zones? When my buddy goes grocery shopping, he buys two of them to keep in his room so he doesn't have to walk to the kitchen when he's thirsty. Not the best guy for the environment.

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#45 Extra Burden

I pay for NFL Sunday Ticket so I can watch all the NFL games each week. One of the channels allow you to watch eight games at the same time, however, there are some weeks where there are nine games playing simultaneously. During these horribly inconvenient weeks, I am burdened with having to watch the ninth game on the iPad.

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#46 Creepy Calls

I'm a dispatcher at a cable company. I'd like to give top spot to the guy who wanted me to send a tech within the hour because he couldn't get his movie to play on-demand (but everything else he tried on-demand worked, it was just the one movie that didn't). The honors, however, go to the guy who told me he was "very old, and very rich, and liked to treat little girls like me". Why the cause for this alarming threat, you ask?

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#47 Resorting To The Pull-Out

A tornado hit our community and power was out for four days. Our luxurious Tempurpedic mechanical bed happened to be and the upright sitting position when the power outage occurred. It wouldn't go back down without the power on. We had to sleep on the pull-out couch in the basement. My back did not appreciate that one bit.

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#48 Yacht Or Not

My mom's coworker tried to take a day off work so she could move her new yacht to their yacht club. Her boss said no, she has already used all her sick days and vacation days. She quit right there and walked out. My mom still sees her every week or two, she now volunteers full time. I want to be that rich that I can not worry about money and have a job purely for fun. If they make me cross one day, just leave and not have to sort out feeding myself. That is a dream right there.

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#49 Breaking Nails

Right now... my car is in the shop and I keep forgetting that my husband's car doesn't automatically unlock when I get close. I've broken a nail trying to open the locked door more than once.

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#50 Nothing To Eat

A friend was complaining that there weren't enough Uber Eats options in the area. There are over 50... There are also dozens of food delivery apps. If you don't like the Uber Eats options, try GrubHub, Caviar, DoorDash...

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