I don’t live in a big town, but here’s what’s provided by our town hall
Her complaint was
“I do not fix parking tickets”
“Just because I work at town hall, it doesn’t mean I am qualified to answer questions about your property taxes”
“I know nothing about trash pick-up”
“I do not take complaints about the librarians”
Call me crazy, but isn’t the town hall where they’re supposed to ask about this stuff?
I can’t fucking believe some of you are giving her so much shit! Sweet fucking Og, she posted a rant about whiney old farts (yes, they exist) taking up her work time with useless inane bullshit, and even trying to get her to do unlawful shit for them.
It wasn’t even a mean-spirited, “Fuck All Old People” rant, it was a “quit fucking with me while I am trying to work, and I won’t bend or break laws for you” rant. I am sure she doesn’t tell these WOF’s, “Get the fuck out of my office, you dribbling old bitch” or she wouldn’t be fucking working there anymore.
Fuck, people post rants all the time here about people fucking with them at work.
Why should WOF’s get a pass?
A simple rant in the Pit about WOF’s doesn’t mean “I FUCKING HATE OLD PEOPLE AND WILL DO ANYTHING I CAN TO TREAT THEM LIKE SHIT WHILE I AM AT WORK.”
No, Lissa, you’re not at all clear, as I’ll get to in a moment, but I would like to congratulate you on reading my post from page one and in a matter of mere hours – days at the most – formulating the bon mot “shut the fuck up.” Frankly, I’m afraid to bandy words with such a deft mistress of the riposte, even when she doesn’t have the faintest idea what she’s talking about, so I’ll address this to Kimstu.
Kimstu, the very first set of items the OP said she didn’t want to hear from old people was complaints about and requests for exceptions to whatever rule she administers. The legitimate answer to these people may be “tough luck,” but I’m having a tough time seeing how the question is unrelated to her job. That’s one reason I can’t quite swallow whole the claim that’s she’s only annoyed because of her fierce and selfless dedication to her work. And when she tells us that she views any personal interaction with old people as “social work” (which she doesn’t do, have you heard?) I stop myself from betting the mortgage money on her insistence that she is unfailingly polite to these people that she “can’t stand.” Somehow, I doubt that the OP’s rules of engagement for the under-65 set are as strict. But I don’t know how she acts on the job: it’s only the rotten attitude demonstrated in the OP that I don’t like.
I believe that old, lonely people often try to prolong human contact in business or professional encounters by speaking of things that are important to them but may be irrelevant or even irritating to others. I believe that it is a possible and necessary act of kindness to allow this, if only for the few seconds it takes to express appreciation or understanding or commiseration as one brings the conversation to a close. If the OP does not develop this skill in the face of mounting evidence that her employers have chosen a wide-open door policy and that dealing with that is a facet of her job no matter how loudly she insists that it isn’t, she’s failing the public and her employer and making herself miserable – at least, more so – in the process.
The choice is not Go Away and Leave Me Alone versus turning the Town Hall into an elderhostel. There are degrees in between that will leave her time and their dignity mostly intact. Most everybody can learn this: actually, by adulthood most everybody has to a great extent.
The assumption that if old people wish to speak and be heard we should assign social workers or special volunteers to the task, instead of merely behaving with the same courtesy we give everyone else, is not one a civil and humane society can afford to have.
The King of Soup OK, both of us can only go by what information the OP provides in her posts.
Can you at least concede the possibility that the OP is as polite and helpful as possible to the WOF’s, but still gets bugged by their inane and irrelevent bullshit, not to mention requests to bend or break by-laws, to the point that it interferes with her work and drives her to post a rant?
It’s just a fucking rant. I think you are overanylyzing this to the point of ridicularity.
Yes. I know ridicularity is not a word, but by golly it should be! 
Oh, and that would be overANALyzing, pardon.
Klaatu, I’ll use “ridicularity” with regularity (in all sincerity – no act of charity) until the ensuing hilarity proves a rarity and my popularity shrinks to a singularity, if you quit capitalizing “anal” whwnever it shows up in the middle of a word.
I may be overanalyzing (the SDMB is a great place for it), but I’m not convinced that I’m wrong. The OP views making small talk with old people as “social work,” she says she “can’t stand” them, she doesn’t even want to talk to them about complaints and requests for variance on the regulation that is her job, and she seems amazed and indignant that she has to talk to them at all. That doesn’t involve any analysis, just reading the text. And that’s why I don’t have the same confidence level in assurances that she’s only mad about the time wastage but nonetheless keeps an unfailingly cheerful mien as I do in the multiplication tables. I also know that angry people often exaggerate when talking about what annoys them, and the picture of two seniors holding her down while a third tells her about his Korean war scar and a fourth shoves baby pictures under her eyelids seems fanciful to me. In short, I don’t think the OP is a monster, but I do think she’s cultivating her justifiable annoyance into a really poisonous attitude, toxic to her as well as others, and she should try to stop.
And that’s what I think about this topic. Being annoyed at old people who impose on you at work = okay. Parlaying that into the kind of antipathy on display here = danger.
For Og’s sake, why do you call yourself the King of Soup when clearly you are the King of Nitwits?
Listen, Your Obtuse Majesty, I have several times stated that I answer all questions related to my job, and that I do so patiently and politely. I am LETTING OFF STEAM here.
Your perservance in arguing your point shows that you are one of those sad lonely people with too much time on their hands. Since you you are so obsessed with the treatment of old people, act on your convictions. Do some friendly visiting at a nursing home. I’m sure your pious sermons will be appreciated there. Here, you’re just a prosing bore.
I am impressed by how hard he is working to twist the OPs words, fabricate stuff that she never said, and ignore her clarifications, simply in order to be able to strike a smug and holier-than-thou attitude with regard to a Pit rant. He is certainly not coming off well here.
Oh, I’m so terribly sorry. Next time, I shall endeavor to deliver my “bon mots” in a timely fashion. I consider myself to be thoughoughly chastened.
I have to admit to being a bit amused that you imagine I’ve thought about you for four days. Flatter yourself much? Ever consider the fact that this might be the first time I read this thread? Nah-- it’s more satisfying, I bet, to think that I’ve been mulling your pearls of wisdom over for days on end before finally coming up with something to say.
I stand by my statement. If the OP’s work is being interrupted, she has every right to be upset. “Public servant” she may be, but she’s being paid to do a specific job, not play counsellor to the public at large.
I am considering switching to the Caridwen’s point of view and simply deciding that the OP made the whole situation up. It’s inconceivable that old people could waste a public servant’s time by rambling about irrelevant things. We’re giving too much benefit of the doubt here. In fact, why believe she’s even a public servant? She probably wanders the streets looking for old people, then engages them in conversation so she can tell them (rudely) that listening to them isn’t her job.
PS. After four days of careful consideration and thinking of nothing else, I would like to second the suggestion of a cup of shut the fuck up. Sometimes an old standby like STFU is the most succinct and appropriate message, and criticizing it for not being original or witty is not particularly original or witty in itself.
Lissa, I apologize. Your post seemed needlessly aggressive, given that I couldn’t remember offending you, and I lost my temper. I should have answered your argument and left it at that.
Not long ago Miller had the wit to see an argument was degenerating and the grace to step away from it without insisting on the last word. Here he seems to want the last word without the bother of participating in the argument. Which, since I still admire his earlier actions, is okay by me and I won’t quarrel with him here.
Colibri was no doubt about to substantiate his accusations of twisting and fabrication when, apparently, he was overpowered and tied up by intruders who hit the submit button. Let’s see how long it takes for him to work himself free and back it up.
That brings us back to the OP. Since she’s begun repeating even her insults (albeit in larger, bolder type), it seems we’ve reached the limits of her capacity to explore this topic. And she certainly is coming across as the most mild and even-tempered poster the internet has ever seen. Can’t imagine her losing her composure just because somebody annoys her. That said, my position in this thread hasn’t changed much. I agree that she has a right to be annoyed with people who pointlessly interfere with her work, but I think the attitudes expressed in the OP, her ready use of pejoratives like “whiny old farts,” “wrinklies,” and “pushy geezers,” and her characterization of listening to old people as social work that should be done by professionals or volunteers within the confines of a nursing home, betray an antipathy that is out of proportion to the cause, buys into negative and false stereotypes, and belies her insistence, over and over and over on how incredibly cheerfully she suffers these importunate fools. My perception is (and I could be wrong) that even if she hasn’t acted on these feelings yet, she’s headed for trouble. And I think that a few seconds of polite conversation, even if it is technically a waste of her time, isn’t too much to ask, and is in fact an important obligation we all share that is not fulfilled by telling me to go talk to elderly people. Sonia obviously didn’t get to be a mid-level small town bureaucratic hack by being stupid: she must know by now that her bosses expect this of her – it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to grasp that decency demands it as well.
Og help us, Soupy, you don’t give up, do you? You just keep gassing on, growing more self-satisfied, sanctimonious and pompous with every sentence, a latter-day William Jennings Bryan. Come on, ya windbag, let’s have some more of your sermonizing. I’m looking to forward to seeing how long you can go on in this vein.
Dopers, I’m new around here. is he always like this?
Based on your last post, I rest my case.
Nope, Sonia, I’m done. I’ve conceded your right to be annoyed and been as persuasive as I can for the proposition that still the attitudes toward old people you’ve displayed need to be examined before they do real harm, but even I draw the line at trying to teach compassion long distance. I’ll be content to know that on Monday morning you’ll be smiling and polite through complaints and requests for exceptions and new stories of grandchildren and old stories of times gone by, not because of any innate sympathy and understanding, but because you have to and will get in trouble if you don’t. Ha ha ha. The only reason I’m still here is that I thought there was a chance Colibri might actually have something that I could be legitimately called uppon to explain or defend or apologize for, but it turns out that was giving him far too much credit.
Colibri, my enjoyment in watching you gag on the charge that I fabricated anything whatever would have been greater had you responded more like a vertebrate and at least tried to defend it. Plus, you screwed up a chance to be clever: you should have written “Your post is my cite,” which is equally meaningless but at least shows a glimmer of wit.
As it is, for all the thousands of posts, charter membership, and letters under your user name, from here on out you’re just the guy who throws around accusations of lying that he can’t back up. I hope you enjoy your new persona, and the reputation that goes with it.
There. Now I’m done.
You seem to mistake the Pit for Great Debates or General Questions. What I’ve said here is my personal opinion based on your posts, and those of the OP. I don’t feel any particular need to justify it to you, or anyone else. I certainly have no inclination to be drawn any further into the delusional wankfest you have been indulging in.
As for my reputation, I am quite sure it will survive intact, whatever you may think. I will say that my personal estimation of you has fallen precipitously due to this thread. I would imagine some others may feel the same way.
That would be a relief, if true, but I suspect it’s a lie.
Indeed.
Wow… who would have guessed that not liking Old People was the SDMB equivalent of being a Holocaust Denier? :eek:
You know what, though? I completely and totally agree with Sonia.
Old people can be whiney, annoying, confused, senile, or just a pain in the ass. That doesn’t mean that all old people are that way, but like Sonia, I’ve encountered more than my fair share who are.
If that makes me Ageist, fine. I’m comfortable with that.
I’m not paid to listen to them ranting about how they can’t plug their VHS player into their TV, or how Back When They Were My Age, they didn’t have TVs or The Internet or Mobile Phones…
Sometimes they do have interesting stories, but the ones with interesting stories are sadly tempered by the lost, confused, or cranky brigade. Being elderly does not give you the right to waste other people’s time, especially when those “other people” are already busy, or on their lunchbreak trying to get their errands done.
OH MY GOD where did all the morons come from?
King of Soup go spend some time interacting with the vast unwashed group known as “The Public.” They aren’t quite so noble as you think they are. Some of them are able to take a hint and get in the right line, but many of them are idiots. Idiots who can’t understand that there’s a time and a place, and who can’t articulate their problems.
For fuck’s sake, i end up taking random calls from The Public at least once a week, and I always wonder how the fuck they ended up talking to me. I write national news, but I’ve had calls from people wanting to know the weather in Smalltown, Anystate; from people who want a TV show on a different network to come to their charity event; from people who want a recipe that aired nine months ago on a morning program. Is it my job to deal with these people? NO! I write the fucking news. But sometimes these fuckers get through. I only wonder: how many of these people are there?
[hijack]
Zoe I’m sorry your kids and grandkids don’t call.
I think I can give you a little advice, Sonia. If you have any extra chairs in your office, put them behind your desk and fill them with files, books, folders, etc. so that anyone who comes in your office has to remain standing. I’ll bet your visitors will cut their ranting short if they can’t stand for very long.
What would be involved in opening an ombudsman’s office and staffing it with volunteer seniors, I wonder?