I'm not talking about requesting to tell the controller my whole life story and what he had for breakfast. I'm talking about people just saying request when they want to avoid weather or want a different cruising level. Only recently the guy sitting next to me just said "request" with usual response by the controller of "pass your message". All I wanted to do was turn right 20 deg for weather. So five transmissions later I got the turn. Surely all these extra transmissions for day to day things make more unnecessary work for a controller. It is just a pet hate of mine along with people saying "with you". Now that really is stating the obvious.
