Yeah, but you’d also have to pay for gas, maintenance, and insurance, and your car would most likely crap out on you at the worst possible moment.
Just want to say I love newsgroups. And indeed, they often seem like an undiscovered world as so few people (including here) know how to use it. It’s just like the SDMB, only even bigger! I swear, if a question can be asked, its been asked on usenet!
Here’s one that gets my undies in a wad: people in customer-service jobs (cashiers, clerks, bank tellers, restaurant servers, whatnot) who share their personal problems with random, unsuspecting customers.
Some people seem not to have learned the concept that “how are you?” is not an invitation to sigh deeply and whine about how tired one is, what a rough day it’s been, or what a jerk the last customer was. If I’m paying you to do something, either directly or indirectly, all I want is for you to provide the goods or services politely and with a reasonable facsimile of a smile. I’m not there to be your therapist, and I’m not going to pat you on the shoulder and say “poor baby”. I don’t want to hear any details of your personal life. The fact that I haven’t shared any of mine should be a tip-off to you.
Like “when is book 5 out” about ten billion times in alt.fan.harry-potter
(bm)
Me being me, true.
On my first ever day driving a car on my own I got hit from the side by a white van. Physically it could not have been my fault but, FIRST DAY!!!?
Actually this one isn’t so minor to me, but what the hell. I really need to vent.
I pit people who don’t respect other people’s cubicle space and are clueless of the discomfort they cause.
Sure, there is no door on the outside. But does that give you permission to just barge on in uninvited and strike up ten minutes of totally unsolicited and unappreciated small talk? Clearly I’m preoccupied with stuff like…I don’t know…work. Prior to your invasion into my personal space, I was rather intensely staring at the computer screen trying to come up with just the right word to go into my report. Now, because body language and simple courtesy escapes you, not only do I have to endure the sound of your pointless, pathetic rambling, but I also have to be an unwillingl participant in a conversation so painfully awkward that I can’t even find convenient moments where I can slide in a “That’s nice” or “Yeah, that’s messed up.” And when the inevitable silences pop up, it is I–not you, the initiator of this horrible social exchange–who feels it is necessary to come up with some bullshit (which for some reason is a lot of hard work for me) to keep the dialogue afloat. I do this out of politeness. Politeness is also the thing that is keeping me from punching your face in, too.
After five minutes of this torture, do you leave? No. Because something in your brain is broken and you can’t pick up on the fact that I am tired of keeping up the charade of enjoying this conversation. So you keep standing there, hovering over me, because it is not enough to be talking to me; no, you have to also be so close to me that I practically have to crane my neck up just to look at your face. How so very nice. We should do this more often.
And why are you are still talking to me, as if I’m listening, as if I care, when I’m so clearly not listening or caring , because I’ve long ago returned my attention to the computer screen and am typing busily, as you still talk? I’ve stopped even trying to communicate anything more than an intermittent nod of the head, hoping that it soon dawns on you that I’m just not in the mood for this right now. But does it? Where the fuck is your eureka moment? I don’t feel like hearing how you cured a dog with food allergies by recommending it eat home-cooked chicken. Why not? Because you told me this story four weeks ago. My eyes glazed over the first time you told me it. Now I feel like cutting off my ears and stuffing them down your bottomless hole of mouth.
And when you finally leave me alone, am I in peace? No, because now I’m left with the lingering fear that you will return and treat me to ten more fun-filled minutes of agony. Thanks a whole bunch. You’ve reminded me why having an office with a closeable door is the prize that it is, and I will continue to work hard so that one day, I will have one.
I’m back for more…
I think for about six months my location was listed as “Central and NW IL.” Then I actually rubbed two brain cells together and figured out I live in Northeastern IL. Damn, but do I ever feel stupid.
I made a totally awesome mirror image ambigram for versimilitude. After I spent 45 minutes on it, I learn that versimilitude isn’t a word, but verisimilitude is. That throws off the entire ambigram, though.
Both of those focus on me being stupid. I feel stupid for that.
Since when?
Flout means to disregard or ignore a rule or law, right? And flaunt means to proudly display something in someone else’s face?
I don’t remember those two being generally conflated.
And I also can’t get outraged about “composed of” vs. “comprised of”. It’s not like the one case I’m really irritated by, namely, “literally”. What subtlety of communication has now ceased to exist?
May I suggest the one tactic that nobody ever thinks to use in this situation?
“I’m so sorry, I’m in the middle of some important work.”
Originally posted by PoorYorick
I hate that. I’ll warn you once. Next offense gets a mild hand slap. I don’t want greasy fingerprint smudges all over my monitor.
Another thing - dirty workstations. UGH. I know that I’m a neat freak/anal but how can people work in a huge mess? I’m talking piles of paper everywhere, post it notes like ivy and a thick layer of protective dust. shudders It amuses me when people say that they wonder how I’m so productive. Just maybe it’s due to the fact I don’t have to spend time searching through a pile of crap that rivals the Augean Stables to get my work done.
Stupid people everywhere keep saying they’re “flaunting the rules.”
I hate hate hate abuse of apostrophes. I have used a Sharpie to deface signs in stores that have improper apostrophe use.
ahhh…cubicles are the worst. I’ve been fortunate, because my company has all of its IT staff in a different building, which was built a few years BCE…Before Cubicle Era. So what we have are offices of varying sizes, some with windows, and some without. There’s the usual sort of pecking order; the higher managers have individual offices with windows overlooking the runways of LAX, other people have less exciting views, or indeed no windows at all. Most of the rank-and-file programmers and such have to share offices, but it’s still better than a cube because of the door. I’ve always found that when I’m in an office, I’m automatically accorded more respect, even by my superiors. If the CIO wanted to talk to me in my office, he’d knock before entering. Whereas, with cubicles, all and sundry seem to feel that not only can they barge in and take up your time as you described, but freaking **walk up behind you and tap you on the shoulder. ** Nothing is more disturbing or startling than that!.
See the discussion on this very thing on the previous page, where you’ll find a spirited exchange between Dorkness and myself.
I used to respond to that question with “Do you want an honest answer or a polite lie?” If you don’t want to risk the answer, don’t ask the question. There are other social nothings you can say. Or just say nothing. When I use “How are you?” I don’t expect a detailed answer, I’ll admit, but it’s sometimes fun what you’ll get. Of course, I’ve been told many times I’m odd. 
My personal pet peeve is anyone, but SF writers in particular, who equate grams with a unit of weight. The gram is a unit of MASS not weight. It’s actually almost understandable for most people who have only been exposed to metric measurements in elementary school science labs where they had weights measuring either pounds or kilograms. It’s still WRONG, but understandable. But when you’re talking about characters describing themselves as weighing 142 kilograms, and they’ve been on at least three different planets with different gravitational constants… they should KNOW the difference between mass and weight. Weight is a measure of force, NOT mass. The two are NOT interchangable. pant pant pant
Of course, just as bad are all those conversion charts that convert weight to kilograms. You can determine mass from weight, as long as you’re on Earth (or otherwise know the gravtational constant affecting the mass.) but Earth is not the center of the universe, people. Frankly it should be a conversion of pounds to newtons, and slugs to kilograms. :rolleyes: Of course for that to work people have to admit that slugs exist.
Of course slugs exist! Apparently they’re a delicacy in some places but here they just eat our plants so I put out dishes of beer that way they can drown their sorrows…
My trivial pet peeve: The way my chair creaks. I don’t know why, and I don’t have any WD40 nor any idea where it would go to stop the infernal creaking!
Jehova’s witnesses ringing my doorbell at Saturdays, 8 in the morning asking whether I’d be interested in reading the ‘Watchtower’.
Anything sealed in plastic with in the corner: ‘Open Here’. Which ofcourse it never does.
People with baby-buggies scratching the skin off your heels and looking indignant when you say “augh”.
Strange Dutch persons, speaking bad English, posting on message boards.
Hey gum! You should have invited them in and kept them busy for a couple of hours. Now they came by my door at 11.00. :mad:
Both of my Webster’s (hardback versions, unabridged) one descriptive, one prescriptive (my favorite), give the proper pronunciation of Monday as “mun/dee” with the first syllable stressed. There is no alternate pronunciation given.
Well there is this bar downtown that is mostly populated by lawyers and their ilk called The Jury Room. It is decorated with a lot of law books and hardwood trim and such. The two bathrooms are labelled “Hung” and “Split”.
hehehehe, I kinda like the ‘hung’ and ‘split’ one, trandallt
Right, Tusculan. Keep them busy, huh. How about asking them to baptise my cat? The big, sharp-nailed basterd needs a bath.
Another pet peeve: Stupidly translated sub-titles. All our foreign news, movies, etc, are sub-titled. Which is good. My Chinese Mandarin and Russian aren’t up to date. 
But I can understand English. And when “shooting pool” is translated as taking a shot at the swimming pool, I get cranky.