Don’t know if you’re familiar with the “First World Problems” meme (a subset of which is a “White Whine”), but it’s pretty well summed up in this video (First World Problem Rap.)
What is the best First World Problem you’ve come across recently; which have happened to you?
The most obnoxious one I’ve seen personally is someone who said something along the lines of “Whole Foods is closer to me, but Trader Joe’s has better broccolini.”
My most recent whine was when I logged onto Facebook to post “Is anyone else having trouble with Google Chrome? I had to use Explorer to post this like some caveman.”
I know what you mean - just try finding competent help to varnish the teak on your yacht - honestly, I’m paying for it to be sanded first, yet they just slop the finish on the weathered wood!!!
OK, We don’t pay anyone to varnish our teak, we do it ourselves, and our yacht is a 33 year old sailboat with leaky portholes. But I admit I did catch myself whining to my sister about the expenses of maintaining a boat - the sister who had 2 kids in college and an unemployed husband. I really didn’t mean to be a snot, I was just venting about an aggravation…
The TV in our bedroom up and died three weeks ago and the kids won’t let us watch theirs. So any time me and the husband want to watch anything, we gotta do it sitting up on the couch.
And, to top it all off, we don’t have enough money to buy a 40" HDTV right now and won’t for months.
At my office they stopped giving away cans of Coke in the vending machine for free.
Now I have to get my free Coke from the soda fountain.
My girlfriend wouldn’t let me buy the tickets to New York before $149 special expired.
The next sale wasn’t until four days later and I had to pay $159.
One of the web comics I read is having an impromptu Guest Week because the artist is without power because of a stupid snow storm. Like who ever heard of it snowing in October, where is your global warming now?
I couldn’t find any free WiFi in Burma for nearly a month. I had to use internet cafes filled with guys spitting out their betel nut juice! How did I survive such an ordeal?
According to the radio in the UK a couple of years ago, a couple once called mountain rescue to helicopter them off a hillside because they were late for a dinner party.
My favorite was a distant relative of mine complaining that she had too many parties to attend that week. The part that really got me was her conclusion: ‘‘When it rains, it pours!’’
Mine is that one of the PC games I bought is too easy.
Halloween - I was running a bit late to meet some friends so we could ride to a party together and wanted to text them that I was on my way. I know better than to text and drive so was going to do it at the next red light but I kept hitting every light green damnit!
We’re in the middle of a cotton crisis and as a result I can’t get nice, soft, cool cotton sheets. I had a set I bought at Ikea years ago. Made in Poland. Awesome sheets. Until one sad day several weeks ago when the flat sheet tore and I knew I’d never be able to find sheets that good a a price I could afford.
I spent fifty bucks on sheets that sucked. Returned them. Bought one hundred dollar sheets that suck. Like sleeping on a thin scratchy towel. Every night I whine myself to sleep over how my hundred dollar sheets suck.
People at work complain about the free gourmet food all the time. I think it’s a rite of passage that means you’re no longer a newbie at the company. Heck, even I do it sometimes, but there are people who get all freaking worked up about it, like it’s some kind of crime perpetrated against them that the Bernaise sauce didn’t taste authentic enough, and they wouldn’t feed it to their dogs, etc.
Also, I read a thread on the management e-mail list complaining that the impromptu bonuses that managers can give out were too small, to the point of being “offensive”. Another manager graciously offered to accept any bonuses that other employees found “offensive” I admit these bonuses aren’t huge, but as many others pointed out, the point is really to recognize the employee, and it’s really less about the monetary reward than the team recognition (and it looks good at promotion time, too.)
Fucking hell! I love my job and am grateful for working at a great firm, having worked at a lot of kind of kind of crappy ones. I’m always amazed at some folks’ capacity for moaning. Meh.
I admit these bonuses aren’t huge, but as many others pointed out, the point is really to recognize the employee, and it’s really less about the monetary reward than the team recognition (and it looks good at promotion time, too.)