The lack of opposable thumbs would seem to be an obstacle too. Wiring is fiddly work even for people with thumbs. 
Fun At The DMV
I wanted to get a Real ID before the deadline. My Mom, sister and SIL live in Florida. If there is an emergency and I need to fly there, I want to be ready. I did my research on the Pennsylvania DMV website. There is only one DMV office in Philly where you can get a Real ID. I checked and double checked- an appointment was not required, nor was there any information on how to make one. They are open Saturdays from 8:30. I got the required documents and woke up at seven.
There was already a long line. After I got in line, security guard informed us that this was the second line, the one for people with paperwork. If we had not been given paperwork, we needed to walk over to the first line. I did that. I waited in line for a bit over two hours before actually making it inside the office.
I am not a very social person. I was polite but had minimal interection with the people around me. The woman in front of me was Haitain. Like the rest of us, she had a smartphone. She was definitely speaking Haitian French Creole. A man in a fantastic looking suit and a sharp pair of shoes, visited her few times to deliver food or dorcuments. I assume this was her husbamd. He didn’t seem to speak English either.
When we got inside, as we had been warned, there was another long line. I no longer have my lightweight, sturdy, folong bamboo stool. So, I had been standing all this time. My back and knees hurt a lot and were very stiff. This was obvious to anybody watching me walk. There were chairs about ten feet from the line we were standing in. They could not be moved. I really didn’t want to lose my place in line. So, I remained standing. The woman in front of me, without any attempt to communicate with me or anybody else in line, walked out of the line and sat down. She sat and did something on her phone. After ten or fifteen minutes, the line had moved closer to the desk a considerable amount. The woman stood up, approached me, said “Excuse me” and gestured in front of me.
I had intentionally not left a gap when she got out of line. I had overheard the two women behind me saying ‘Why did she get out of line? If she tries to get back in, I’m not letting her in front of me.’. I had agreed with them, mentioning that I had back and knee problems but did not want to lose my place.
I assumed the woman spoke almost no English. I politely but firmly said “No.” and pointed to the back of the line. Either she didn’t understand or she didn’t care. She said “Excuse me” again and gestured in front of me. I repeated “No” more firmly and again pointed at the back of the line. I had a thought and said “Non!” IIRC that is no in French. I was hoping the word was the same in Haitian French Creole. She said “Excuse me” a few more times. I repeated “No! Non!” a few more times with increasing firmness and volume. At one point, it seemed she was going to try to walk in front of me and force her way back in line. Doing my best to seem non threatening and non violent, I blocked her way with extending my arm and holding my granny cart sideways in front of her. Eventually she got the idea that I was not going to let her stand in front of me.
She then attempted to stand directly behind me. The two women behind me would not let her back in to the line. They were telling her she needed to go the back of the line. I explained that the woman was Haitian and did not speak English. I had a thought. I was bringing up Google Translate on my iPhone and trying to translate “You got out of line to sit down. You have lost your place.” into Haitian French Creole when the woman walked away. She went to a security guard. The guard immediately understood that she needed a translator. He sat her down somewhere while they tried to get her one.
At one point, my granny cart fell over. One of the women behind me, who had seen the trouble I was having walking and who I had mentioned my back and knee problems to, immediately offered to pick it up for me. I thanked her profusely but said I could do it myself. I point this out to show, these women were not being mean, or cold or anything of the sort. I was old enough to be their father and having obvious problems. One of them immediately offered help when I seemed to need it. The woman had gotten out of line for no apparent reason. She was younger than me. She was not having any obvious dificulty standing or walking (I was having very obvious problems by this point). She got out of line because she thought it would be nice to sit down- no other reason.
I made it to the front of the line and got a number. I eventually stopped checking on the woman. I had been sitting (finally!) and waiting for my number to be called for about 30 minutes by that point.
After about another two hours, my number was called. I presented the paperwork they had given me and the documents I had brought. They gave me another form and said to wait for my number to be called. Twenty minutes later, they took my picture. Twenty minutes after that, I had a Real ID.
NOTE- The line were extremely long. Rather than sitting quietly while waiting for their numbers to be called, most people were talking loudly to each other, talking loudly on the phone, or listening to music or a show on their phone without using headphones. The woman in front of me left the line and then tried to get back in.
However, all the DMV employees (though obviously overwhelmed) were doing the best to be cheerful. They were all friendly, polite and very helpful.
There was a Dollar Tree very near the DMV office. I bought a bunch of stuff I needed. I l also bought a frisbee with holes in it so it makes bubbles when thrown. Genius! It being Passover, I was unable to purchase any of the fiine junkfood there. They had Reese Peanutbutter Cups with Chocolate Lava (they are wonderful but messy) for an amazing price.
MS Word
I’m working on a new CV, and clearly picked the wrong tool. It’s so easy to get into formatting hell where something keeps jumping to the wrong place or there’s whitespace you can’t get rid of etc.
At one point, I deleted a paragraph and all text in all parts of the document became one character per row, like this:
H
e
l
l
o
And now I seem to have encountered the “table doesn’t break over pages” bug. How can it be this bad?
Whatever changes to the dmv Michigan made during the pandemic has drastically improved my experience wrt to lines and wait times.
But I don’t understand why you didn’t let the lady back in line? Maybe her feet were killing her or she felt lightheaded or what would’ve you done if she or you or anyone left the line to use the loo? SOL back to the end of the line again? No. That’s not right.
Word has always been like that, at least going back to Office XP and probably well before. One eventually learns to tame it, at least somewhat, but the unintended reformatting is one of its truly awful behaviours.
As to how it can be this bad, Word (like much of Microsoft software) is an unstructured mess of spaghetti code that is almost impossible to maintain. It has long had far more features than the vast majority of users will ever have any need for, and instead of trying to make newer versions more reliable (where’s the money in that?) Microsoft just keeps adding even more useless features and hence even more complexity.
I don’t have any of the new versions of Office – the newest I have is Office 2007 on one computer and Office 2003 on another. They both have every Word feature I’ve ever needed (Word 2003 doesn’t natively support the newer .docx XML format, but you can add an extension to it that does.) It wouldn’t surprise me if newer versions are even buggier.
My dad just changed from Office 2007 to the newest version. He said everything on the screens looks different, but the printouts look the same, so he’s satisfied. He’s actually found the whole transition to Windows 11 rather painless and he’s going to get signed up with Google cloud storage as well.
But he wants us to help him when we’re there, and we keep trying to get him to use local help, who can help when there are problems. We’re too far away for easy tech support.
I suspect that if she had said something before departing the line, she would have been let back in. And that each of the parties was performing their own culture’s normal line-waiting behaviours, and neither considered the possibility that there’s more than one way to do queues correctly, varying by culture.
I wish there was a way to say “Look, ma’m, you got out of line, but you may not have known you’d forfeit your spot.
So… if you get angry about this, you’re going to the end of the queue; but if you cooperate, you’ll go back five spaces.”
In my fantasy, I stand up and preface this with “Attention, everyone, we have a situation here, and to settle it without bloodshed, I’ve appointed myself Arbiter Of The DMV Line…”
It’s a good occasion to post my own line-related mini-rant:
There’s a lot of memes and things that tell you to be kind and let someone cut in line. Well, it’s kind to the cutter, but it’s damned rude to those in line behind you. If you’re going to let someone cut in line, please get the permission of EVERYONE in line behind you, whose wait you are lengthening without consent.
Thank you.
Is “assigned risk” not a thing any more? Or was that always just a car insurance thing?
I will cheerfully offer to let someone cut into a grocery checkout line ahead of me if I have a lot of stuff and they just have one or two things. Usually they just politely get behind me, and I admire their courtesy and am happy to let them go ahead. If I happen to only notice them when there’s already a line behind them, big deal, we’re just switching places and it doesn’t add to anyone’s wait.
But yeah, if some jerk rushes in with a pile of groceries and tries to cut into the line, I’ll equally cheerfully tell them to fuck right off. I’ve occasionally seen that happen in long lineups for things like event tickets, and the person telling the line-cutter to fuck right off gets a lot of support from everyone else in line!
ETA: Speaking of long line-ups for things like tickets, here’s another tip about queue courtesy. Attention, jerks everywhere! Just because you have a legitimate place in line does not give you the right to have a whole bunch of your asshole friends join you in line later! This is more or less the same thing @Dr.Drake originally said, but a more extreme example.
Yeah: switching places doesn’t count, as that’s kind and affects other people not at all. I wouldn’t consider that cutting / jumping the queue.
It is but I think it’s a mix. Some will pay more based on location but there’s also an average that goes up for everyone, driven by those high risk people. At least that’s my understanding.
What sorts of things are you seeing that says cutting in line is OK and a kind thing to do?
It’s on a bunch of those “random acts of kindness” lists.
So it was perfectly clear to you that she was in line but needed to step off to the side to sit, but because she didn’t clear it with you first, you wouldn’t let her in??? I’m astonished! Where I live, anyone would have immediately understood and let her back in. In my mind, you were being a jerk. Even though you were miserable and in pain, you could have done her a mitzvah and let her in, but per your ad hoc rules which clearly she did nor know, you had her start over. You could have even asked her if she wanted you to keep her place in line. Heck, you could have sat down yourself after checking with the person behind you. But you neglected to bring a stool so you made sure to screw her over. Were you pissed off that her husband had nice shoes, which you made sure to make note of? Were you pleased that you got to get served in her place?
Fuck, you’ve just depressed me at how miserable people can be. All it takes is one person to do a kindness and others will usually step up. That person could have been you.
In this situation and given the apparent language barrier I would have let her back in in front of me.
Pain and disability are not always obvious. No one knows what she was struggling with at the time.
These kinds of things really make me despair for the future.
This, very much this.
And even more this. Pain and disability are indeed often invisible. I have several invisible disabilities that would make it impossible for me to remain in a slow moving line for hours and hours and I would have needed respite.
The difference is I am in my home culture and I’m also fluent in the primary language spoken and understood by the vast majority of the folks who I’d most likely be in a line with. I would have asked, “I need to sit for a few minutes. Would you hold my place in line til I return?”, or, “I need to go to the restroom. May I have my place in line back when I return?”. In the Midwest culture where I live both of those times I would receive an immediate “sure” or a nod “yes”.
No. It was not at all clear she needed to sit down. If she was in pain or having any dificulty walking or standing, there was no sign. As I said, by that tme I was having obvious problems walking which were visible to anybody.
She had a smart phone. I know, everrbody in the line was on their phone quite a bit. She made no attempt to use Google Translate or something similar to convey a message that she needed to sit down and was that okay? She made no attempt to convey a message of any kind. She simply got out of line and sat down.
Ad hoc? My rules? No. These are the rules of the society we live in. If you get out of line without a very good reason, you lose your place.
How would violating as simple a rule as ‘If you get out of line for no good reason, you lose your place’ be a mitzvah? As was said above, it would have shown her kindness (which she did not deserve) but done a disservice to everybody behind me in the line.
Again, she did not say she was going to sit down. She just walked away and sat down. She then immediately went on her smartphone. To get her attention, I would have had to yell. I didn’t know her name. She spoke next to no Englsih. What would I have said?
Again, I would need to check not just with the person behind me but every person behind me in the line.
Forgetting to bring the stool was my error. She screwed herself over when she got out of line. Which was her error.
No, I was not pissed off about that. It was simply one of the details that stood out about the day.
I was NOT served in her place. She gave up her place when she got out of line.
Again, I spoke up about the physical problems I was having and that I would not let her back in line only after the two women behind spoke out on the matter voicing the same sentiments.Again, after realizing that I would not let her in ffront of me, she tried to re enter the line directly behind me. The women behind me were just as adamant that she had given up her place and needed to go to the back of the line.
Finally, just how is it a “kindness”? Even accepting for the sake of argument that it would have been kind to her, it would have been unkind to everybody in line behind me. Why does this woman, who got out of line for no apparent reason and without asking if her place would be saved, deserve a kindness over everybody behind me?
Not your concern. None of your business.
As I said, by that tme I was having obvious problems walking which were visible to anybody.
Completely irrelevant.
She had a smart phone. I know, everrbody in the line was on their phone quite a bit. She made no attempt to use Google Translate or something similar to convey a message that she needed to sit down and was that okay?
So even though you might have surmised that she had a reason for sitting down, because she didn’t clear it with you first (because she was somehow supposed to know this?), she’s outta luck.
As was said above, it would have shown her kindness (which she did not deserve)
(bolding mine) She deserved it by virtue of being a fellow human. Clearly you deemed her physical pain insufficient enough to merit your empathy.
I was NOT served in her place. She gave up her place when she got out of line.
Bullshit. You physically barred her from stepping back in so you could keep her spot in line when you clearly and admittedly knew she sat down to rest assuming you’d let her back in. And you’ve justified it over and over and over again to feel better.
The only reason the people behind you didn’t let her in was because they were following your shitty lead. Your world is a dog-eat-dog world in your world.
I’m surprised you all didn’t pelt her with stones.
It must be terrible to live in a place where treating other people like this is normal. I assure you, it is NOT normal. Welcome to TrumpLand.
Why not ask your rabbi what he thinks of your behavior to your fellow human? Be sure to tell him your back was sore and she had a smartphone; I’m sure that’ll sway him.