November 09, 2006

How to Annoy Me 101:

So my friend Pammer over at Outside Voice posted yesterday about things that annoy her to absolutely no end. She ended the post by asking her readers what annoys them. I said that there wasn’t enough room in the comment box for me to list the things that make me nuts, so to answer her question, today’s post is dedicated to things that annoy the hell out of me.

1. Close talkers. I’m not one of those people who need a 3 foot radius of personal space or anything. I don’t even mind people touching me when they talk. But I do have boundaries. And when you’re eight inches from my face, and I know by your commentary of the weather that you had Mexican for lunch, you’re too close. Simon says, take one step backwards.

2. One-Uppers. I don’t care what happens. They’ve got one better (or worse, depending on what happened). You could have just gotten a $20,000/year raise. They got 22. You may have just torn your ACL. They tore their ACL AND their MCL. I realize that the vast majority of these people are just trying to somehow relate to me, but I think they suck.

3. Automated phone systems that are non-navigational. One of the agencies I work with has a phone system that defies all logic. There is no directory you can access, pressing “0” gets you back to the starting point (not an operator, like one would think). And if, by some stroke of dumb luck, you get the correct extension, and the party doesn’t answer – there’s NO VOICEMAIL, so you are directed back to the main menu. After about seven minutes of randomly pushing buttons, I’m ready for gin, and lots of it. What’s worse, they’re an addiction recovery facility. I guess it’s good for business?

4. Power Dialers. These fine souls aren’t content to dial one number to reach you and leave a message. No. If they can’t find you at the office, they call your home. If you don’t answer there, they call your cell. Then they send you a text. I have had this happen. And they do this for EVERYTHING. Not just emergencies.

5. Grocery Line Hogs. Oh, how I hate these people. They’re the ones in line in front of you with six weeks’ worth of groceries for a family of eleven. All you’ve got a gallon of milk, and the express line is closed, and they don’t let you go ahead of them. Then they bust out the coupons for EVERYTHING and then pay. With exact change.

6. Loud Cursers. Okay, I’m no prude. I curse like an angry sailor. Seriously. I’m not offended by profanity. But there are people out there who utter profanity like it’s in 24 pt. bold underlined font. You know what I’m talking about, right? Surely you’ve sat in a booth next to a Loud Curser in a restaurant. You’ll hear parts of the conversation like Charlie Brown’s Teacher (wah-wah-wah) and then BAM! There’s the curse word. So you hear “wah-wah-wah-wah-BITCH!-wah-wah-wah-ASSHOLE!-wah-wah…

7. CD packaging. Really? Do you need the unopenable shrink wrap AND the unremovable sticker? I spend more time in the parking lot of best buy fighting with the CD wrapper, when all I want to do is listen to the CD.

8. Political Correctness. I hate all things PC with a vengeance. Honestly, I do. There is a difference between PC and respect. I believe that people should be treated courteously and respectfully. I just see no reason to come up with special words or phrases to “make them feel better.” Truthfully, it’s patronizing and condescending as all hell to even try. Instead of making sure that you’ve phrased everything neutrally so no one’s feel-bads get hurt, why not just look them in the eye, accept them as a person and smile? It’s just so much easier.

9. People who assume I’m illiterate. “I sent you an e-mail, did you get it?” or the best yet: “I took a phone message for you” and will then proceed to READ THE MESSAGE TO ME before they hand me the slip of paper. Okay, seriously? If this is the worst thing that happens to me in the course of my day, I’ve got it pretty damned good. I know that they’re just trying to help. But I can read, mmmkay?

On a side note: Funny farm (see below): Yeah, I'm obsessed. 24 of 25 squares are now open.

4 comments:

L said...

ha! i HATE one-uppers too. especially now that i'm pregnant, because it seems everyone has a horrible pregnancy story to tell me when i complain of a headache or backache. its like, just shut up and let me complain!

Anonymous said...

Love the list. I go cross eyed when someone feels the need to out do me too. I can't relate too well to the carton of milk behind the massive family because I'm usually somewhere in between with my two youngin's, but I definitely agree with you about the cussing thing. It is absolutely amazing how thoughtless and unmindful people are about speaking in public. Just yesterday, I was doing the riverwalk in San Antonio, lovely place, aside from the two boobs sitting across the way, dropping F bombs every other word, and the crazy thing is they weren't even upset.. this was just normal conversation. What on earth. Good list!

As for funny farm.. I'm still shaking my head.. ;)

Anonymous said...

On the CDs here in Australia if you buy one at K Mart you hope for the shrink wrap because they put a sticker across the case to prove you didn't open it. Problem is you can never get that sticker off so you're stuck (ah the humble pun) with glue on your cd case. Very very annoying and futile on their behalf too because it's not like they check the CD itself even though the sticker says they did.

Unknown said...

Yup. We're seriously related in some past life or something. I agree 100%.

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