Anybody else feeling a bit hostile?

I normally pay close attention to my own moods but this one kind of crept up on me. Even before this virus thing I started noticing people driving a little more aggressively and being more impatient than usual (not just at me, but in general). It got me to the point where it was hard to be civil online so I took a short break from a couple different platforms (which I will likely return to seeing as how TPTB still haven’t resolved the time out errors). Finally, maybe a couple weeks ago, I noticed I was being tailgated on my commute. Just like in the commercial I started paying more attention to the front bumper in my mirror than to the rear bumper of the car ahead. When I noticed I was too close, I backed off the gas and braked very lightly to get my following distance back. Guy behind me locks up his brakes. Then he guns it and pulls along side me to my left–that’s a left turn only lane–and very nearly removes my front bumper as he squeezes his 4-Runner in between me and the car ahead of me. And he locks up his brakes again. Fortunately I worked out what he was up to and came to a calm, smooth stop well behind him. THEN he jumps out of his car and invites me to engage him in fisticuffs. By this time I had achieved the level of rage I have managed to avoid for well over a decade, but my fighting days are behind me and I was still able to keep in mind this would be a fight with an unknown, and clearly unhinged, person on his terms. So I impolitely declined and invited him to resume his journey. A review of my front/rear dashcam footage assured me I hadn’t accidentally offended him prior to this incident. So it really was just a case of tailgater gets incidentally brake-checked and loses his mind.

I would have been really offended had I not thought about it just a little bit and recognized myownself growing more aggravated in recent months. Must be something in the water. Anyways, I’m even more mindful than usual now and I hope he gets his shit together as well before somebody gives him the face dance he was begging for.

Other people I’ve talked to have readily agreed that they too are noticing tension where there was none before. You folks? Or is this just my neighborhood?

Shit no! I’m in a perfectly good frame of mind, screw you for asking!!!

Seriously, I am fairly placid and trying to be nicer than usual to store/supermarket workers I encounter. Even online support/sales people, though that’s a lot tougher.

I’m not more hostile. However I am more worried, which translates into being a bit more stressed.

There are people for whom stress translates into rage. I’m not one of them; I’m more of a turtle type.

And there is nothing that another driver could do to force me to stop my car and get out. I can’t imagine doing that.

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”

Hostile? No.

Totally off kilter, distracted, unable to focus? Absofuckinlutely. Life is pretty surreal right now …

We’re living in the days of instant gratification and social media driven narcissism. We have hundreds of thousands of years worth of primate aggression with no good way to release it in social situations.

The only thing I’ve been having release from lately is going to the gym and lifting weights 3-4 days a week. Now the gym has been closed indefinitely due to Coronavirus, things just keep getting better.

My entire company (400+) is working from home, and everyone has suddenly discovered Slack. They have also discovered that you can ping people all day long expecting an immediate answer.

I am being made hostile by the incessant pinging, which i can hear all the way from the bathroom (when I ever get the chance to go there)

I think this is the heart of it. Even beyond politics there’s just been a gradual buildup of uncertainty about lots of different, and pretty big, stuff. The germ isn’t helping, but it’s just one more thing rather than the root. Curious.

We use Slack AND MS Teams. My day is nothing but interruptions. :mad:

I just typed “Don’t we have more important things to do?” in a team Skype session with my project team and VP. It was in a response to a conversation about picking the right “color” for the dashboard metric of things that are “late”. I meant to post it in a private chat. But there you go. Hostile and distracted.

I go to work each day on site because my job can’t be done off-site and interact with hundreds of customers per day. All of us there are pretty much guaranteed to catch this shitty virus.

The company is hiring lots of new people that will have to be trained and ready to take over when - not IF but WHEN - the old guard start falling ill. Which could be any day now.

We could see 100% staff turnover at some point, including store management, in an industry now considered essential. Statistically, we should get 2-8 deaths per store, probably a similar number not coming back due to disability from lung damage. The rest should be OK. Eventually.

Yeah, I’m feeling a bit punchy about that today.

Things have calmed down a bit in the Colorado mountains. That’s because all of the tourists are gone. It’s not been this calm for 20 years. Everyone is being quite nice to each other. Yeah, supplies are a bit low, but we can barter if need be.

My Wife and I will play a few games of chess, drink a few beers and relax.

What a perfect first post. I couldn’t agree more (although the one my company uses is Skype for Business). I’ve finally had to sign out of it (my excuse will be that I rebooted my computer, the application didn’t auto-start, and I didn’t notice that it wasn’t up and running).

I’m pretty good on following up with email replies (moreso than a lot of people I work with), so until further notice if you need something from me, send me an email and “your call will be answered in the order that it was received”.

I am definitely more on edge. I don’t know about “hostile,” but my headspace is kind of a in a weird surreal haze it hasn’t been in about 20 years. I guess it’s just what my brain does when there’s background stress. Everything just feels slightly disassociated from reality. It’s aggravating me because consciously I don’t see it as being that much a problem or issue, but apparently my subconscious self wants to screw with me. Ugh.

+1. I’m totally discombobulated. I thrive in patterns and regularity. ALL of my normal routines have been disrupted, and its making my latent OCD and ADD flare up.

Playing Minecraft has been my only salvation. Its just so… calming.

Yes, I’m feeling more hostile. People are over reacting to this virus thing, I really think that. So the economy is going down the tubes, and so is social interaction. I’ve lost my job.

Thousands die of flu, but are we worried about that? Nope.

I’m going to go broke, so I’m stressed. And I’m hostile at the folks who are causing it.

A little bit. Yeah.

I’ve lived in and around NYC since 9/11. Literally. I had a great job lined up after business school that started on 9/10/2001 in the World Financial Center across the street from the towers. Since then I’ve dealt with all that, the following anthrax attacks, the Northeast blackout of 2003, the Great Recession of 2007, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy, various assorted terrorist attacks and a PATH train driving through the station I would normally take to work.

Now we have to deal with this global Coronavirus bullshit?

What I’d like at this point in my life is to just have to deal with regular annoying family life crap. NOT be living in what would have sounded like some kind of crappy dystopian scify story I might have seen growing up in the 80s.

I’m doing ok; no more hostility than the minor stuff I have in traffic and plumbers that over interpret codes so that I need to spend more money.

I am way less hostile than usual nowadays. Also, my hostility isn’t really a hostility at all.

No more than usual. The direction its taking has changed.