Depends on your personality. I could perfectly well sit in my house in my underwear and translate, but I find that I focus better on my work if I’m fully dressed. I’ve seen housekeeping books that suggest that you get fully dressed, including shoes, to clean your house (not wearing nice clothes, obviously, but not in your underwear either). It helps the mental shift into “work mode.”
I don’t understand people who lack basic common sense and seem proud of it. “Oh, I locked myself out of my house yesterday and the day before and will probably do it again tomorrow!” You are not delightfully free-spirited and whimsical, you are a disaster.
I don’t understand people who would rather complain about a problem than solve it.
I don’t understand non-morning people. It’s 9 o’clock! Let’s get up already! The birds are singing and there are things to be done!
I don’t understand people who lack basic common sense and seem proud of it. “Oh, I locked myself out of my house yesterday and the day before and will probably do it again tomorrow!” You are not delightfully free-spirited and whimsical, you are a disaster.
I don’t understand people who would rather complain about a problem than solve it.
I don’t understand non-morning people. It’s 9 o’clock! Let’s get up already! The birds are singing and there are things to be done!
I don’t understand people who feel like they need to be up and going simply because it is morning. Ever since the invention of electricity the only thing one can do during daylight hours that you can’t do after dark is get a suntan, and even then if you find a 24 hour tanning salon you can still do that (unhealthy as it may be.) People work on different schedules and just because you want to be up and flittering about at 7:30 in the morning doesn’t mean that I can function that early.
I’m anything but a workaholic. Work is just something that intrudes on the time I would prefer to spend on my family and my hobbies.
That said, I’m often a late email sender (not that I expect replies at odd times). I’ll sometimes take time from my day to participate in my daughter’s school activities, or attend a Yankee game, or some other non-work activity. However, when I’m home watching football on a Sunday, I can review and revise documents, respond to emails, etc. Again, I don’t expect responses during non-work hours (unless previously arranged), but it is nice to sometimes be able to shift my hours to when they are more convenient to me.
In a perfect world, I’d win the lottery (can never get by step 1: buy a ticket, but that’s another story) and never work another day in my life. For this imperfect world, I’ll do some work at odd hours to make up for all the things that happen during business hours that call for my attention.
Well, taking on your particular outfit. . . dresses/skirts are a problem for me because it’s uncomfortable for me to sit in them. Sitting straight with my knees together or crossed makes my legs or back hurt. Any way I sit comfortably is indecent. I have tried pantyhose of every kind, they make my skin itch. My recently reconstructed ankle aside, there’s lots of evidence heels are bad for your feet, your legs, and your back. It shouldn’t be surprising they cause some people pain. Dress clothes don’t tend to have any give, and if your body is in any way non standard, you can’t get anything to fit well without extensive tailoring. Even just business casual is much more forgiving.
I love nice clothes and pretty shoes. I’d love nothing more than to wear a dress and heels every day. My body just doesn’t agree. I don’t think it qualifies as a “mindset”.
People for whom the phrase “I’m in love” is an all-purpose justification for engaging in or accepting all manner of reprehensible and (self-)destructive behavior. Look, I get that one’s brain chemistry gets a little whacky during that time, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be held responsible for your actions or behave like a doormat.
People who assume that because I’m not a member of their religious denomination or political party I must be ignorant of said beliefs, and will appreciate being interrupted in my daily life so they can rip the scales from my eyes.
People who believe that their political affiliation dictates how they dress and decorate their homes. Did I miss a position paper somewhere?
Adults who are afraid to engage in leisure activities they enjoy because they’re afraid to appear less grown up.
People who use the appearance, education, or professional success of their mates to bolster their own position and self-esteem.
I don’t understand meanness. I am referring to anything anyone might do or say that could possibly, however subtly, injure someone else. For example, the BBQ Pit, the things people say to one another – yeah, I’m sure some people let those words roll of their backs, but there are others that can’t let shit like that go. And I’m aware it’s much worse in other areas of the interweb.
And meanness’ greatest extreme – torture. Jesus fucking god, I do not get how someone can deliberately cause other human beings suffering. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking of the millions of people who have been tortured, trying to understand how anyone could possibly do that to another human being.
I don’t even understand seemingly justified hatred, like wanting your Dad to die old and alone because he beat you ever night when you were a kid. I just don’t get it. How would your Dad’s suffering make you suffer any less? Ideas like ‘‘revenge’’ are just alien to me.
Then we have things like racism and homophobia, which make no sense either. I fully understand the concept of racist thinking, because I’m sure I’ve had my own share of prejudiced thoughts from time to time – but to actually let that garbage come out of your mouth, or let it affect the way you treat others? Unthinkable.
People who claim to hold a particular religious belief (or major political/philosophical belief), but know fairly little about it, haven’t fully read the holy books (many times), haven’t at least sampled its scholarly theology or its history. I give a pass to recent converts and young people, who either haven’t yet gotten up to speed or haven’t really sorted out their life’s priorities. But I find it hard to accept anyone’s belief as serious if they haven’t done some serious study. I’ve read my favorite books several times each. You can bet that if I thought there was a book with the message of God(s) in it, I’d be poring over that thing daily.
OTOH, it’s hard for me to take someone seriously when the Bible is all they ever read.
Here’s the difference between us: I wouldn’t care. I most likely wouldn’t even notice if I went out to the store or the park and everyone were dressed like a bum.
Even more incomprehensible: people who enjoy watching other people do this sort of thing. People who enjoyed watching Survivor, this means you. I tried watching it three times that I can remember- once, I got bored and went off to do a take-home test I’d been putting off, once I went off and did my taxes, and once I went and assembled our new laundry hamper. (Yes, I probably should have kept watching it- things I’d been putting off got done when I tried to watch Survivor) My mom (who was a fan) said the enjoyment came from watching all the political intrigues in the groups. For me, watching that was about as much fun as watching paint dry.
I give a pass to the young people, but, and I say this as someone who converted to a different religion as an adult:
Why the hell would you convert to a religion you know nothing about? How on earth would you know if it’s right for you or not?
I can understand accidental meanness, or meanness that somehow benefits the person dishing it out (stuff like taking the last cupcake). But what I don’t understand is meanness just for its own sake- stuff like deliberately taking a long time to leave a parking space because you know someone else is waiting for it.
The maxim that I would care into granite if I were god-king would be Heinlein’s
and for much the same reason. I don’t understand any unprovoked (or most provoked) violations of this (though I’ll admit I don’t judge bitchslapping violaters in the “unnecessarily” part).
After participating in “Help the Hooch” (Chattahoochee River clean-up) a couple of weeks ago, this one comes back to mind:
I do not understand the mindset of people who tear up stuff that doesn’t belong to them, simply for the joy of tearing up stuff. We found an entire cast iron bench that had been ripped from its bolts in the concrete Riverwalk and thrown over the rail into the river. It took more than one person to do this, and quite a bit of effort. WHY? What did the friggin bench do to you? Does it really bother you that much that people might like a place to sit?
What is the point?
I don’t understand the mindset of people who take cellphone calls in the most inappropriate places, like in a classroom or a movie theater. Not only are they interrupting the event, they’re exposing everyone around them to details of their personal lives. Especially in class… I just want to sent these people a bill for the $20 of collective instructional time that was lost just so they could say “Hi Mom, how was your day, etc, I’ll call you back later”.
Not far removed is the cell-phone driver, the ones that swerve all over the road, either tailgating or creeping like a snail, causing all kinds of safety hazards. I’m not talking about aggressive drivers, I understand the asshole mindset. I’m talking about the “Oops I almost drove into a bus checking my voicemail” mindset.
Here’s another one. I don’t get why adults would spend money to see animation movies clearly intended for children, without actually having children in tow. Then again, I’m quite the arthouse-movie whore; all of the hype surrounding most populist pieces of Hollywood dredge turns me off anyway, and it seems like they just crank it up to ludicrous extremes for all of these 3D animation flicks that seem to come out every month.
These are the people for whom time is more precious than life. (Speaking of mindsets we don’t understand.)
Anyone whose idea of “problem solving” is figuring out who to blame for the problem.
Well, do you mean things like the “Pokemon” movie, or just all animation in general, because there are a lot of really great animated films out there, plenty of which can be enjoyed by and are targeted towards adults.
The idea (proffered by atheists and certain others) that there is just one variety of religious experience, painting anything remotely religious and/or spiritual with the same very broad brush, and then they proceed to rail and cavil against that, and ignore all other possibilities, even/especially when the actual subject of discussion has very little to do with the subject of the rant. Read William James and get back to us.
I’m pretty sure I was talking about “movies clearly intended for children”. There are lots of great animated films targeted towards adults, like the Triplets of Belleville, which I enjoyed quite a lot. I guess the thing I don’t get is that there’s no way I’d spend my money on a movie intended for children, period; I know lots of people who would never watch a live-action kids’ movie in a million years, but gobble up every piece of simplistic glurge Disney puts out for kids as long as it’s in cartoon form. Hey, if you like it, that’s great. Alls I’m sayin’ is, I don’t get it and I probably never will.