# Things that infuriate you well beyond their actual importance **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2024, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712 "2024-09-04T02:18:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 85
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1681 "2025-05-24T02:47:52Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > They did things like making the first floor of a building 910, the second floor 9100, the third floor 91000 X street. **That is so wrong on so many levels it’s hard to explain.** (Bolding mine) Great play on words! > [@enipla](#): > > … doing this correctly is part of my job, and I now live on a street that is wrong. Aggravating! ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1682 "2025-05-24T16:46:42Z")
I occasionally get snarky with Adobe at work, where I’ll give a rating of zero/not at all to the question “how likely are you to recommend this product to friends and family”. I’ll add that I don’t talk about corporate version software with people I care about. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1683 "2025-05-24T19:06:52Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > the question “how likely are you to recommend this product to friends and family” My pacemaker app occasionally asks me that. A pacemaker app. First of all, most of my friends and family don’t have a pacemaker. I don’t actually think that any of them do; though in the case of casual friends I suppose they might without my knowing about it. I’m certainly not going to recommend to anybody who doesn’t need a pacemaker that they go get one so they can use the app! Second of all, if I did know somebody who was just about to get a pacemaker, I’d advise them to get whatever their doctor’s recommending. I am not their doctor. If they got some other make of pacemaker, it presumably wouldn’t work with this particular app. I’m not going to tell them which pacemaker to get! So the chances that I’m going to recommend this particular pacemaker app to anybody are effectively zero. But that’s got nothing at all to do with how pleased I am with the pacemaker or with the app. The system appears to be working overall; I’m pleased about that. (If it weren’t, I’d very likely be neither pleased or displeased about anything at all. Let alone making recommendations.) ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1684 "2025-05-24T19:25:32Z")
This is making me laugh so hard. You’re right, who _recommends a pacemaker_? On another topic, I will be traveling to the UK in a while and applied for a visa. Had to pay for it, so prompts me to select from a massive drop down list the country I’m applying from. I select Canada, and it then tells me “because you are applying from Canada, you must pay in United States Dollars”. To pay the UK. From Canada. Wtf? Why not just list the currencies you accept and the conversion from CAD? It’s going on a credit card anyway. So dumb. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1685 "2025-05-24T19:45:28Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > I select Canada, and it then tells me “because you are applying from Canada, you must pay in United States Dollars”. To pay the UK. From Canada. Wtf? > > Why not just list the currencies you accept and the conversion from CAD? It’s going on a credit card anyway. (As a Canadian i can make this joke) Because maple syrup is hard to deposit and makes the banks machines all sticky. 😇 😀 ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1686 "2025-05-24T20:11:09Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > “how likely are you to recommend this product to friends and family” Apparently we can blame Fred Reichheld for that. He’s a researcher who conducted a study in the early 2000s, and found that the “how likely are you recommend this product” was the one question that generated useful data; as in responses to that question best predicted whether people would actually buy a product again. And that kind of unleashed a monster; the business world found out about that study, and they all started asking everyone that question, even in cases where it isn’t really applicable. > **[Companies have our data. Why do they keep asking if we like them?](https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/09/11/companies-collect-consumer-data-so-why-do-they-keep-asking-how-we-feel)** > > Constant requests for feedback can provide useful info for firms. But there are alternatives to overdoing it and annoying customers. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1687 "2025-05-24T22:06:33Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > We, like most folks have some flashlights. On a tangent of flashlights. Who uses the flashing-light mode of their flashlight on a regular enough basis that they want it to take a prominent position in the “push-on/push-off” sequence of the power button? The answer is NOBODY. Nobody wants that dumb multi-function pushbutton. They just want light to come on when they press it and light to go off when they press it again. But manufacturers of cheaper (yuck…“tactical”…blech) flashlights tend to put multiple modes in their single pushbutton, so turning it on and then turning it off involves a half dozen button presses and very indiscreet disco flashing before it finally turns off. The smarter–more expensive–ones hide those modes behind double-taps or long presses, and reserve the single button press to turn on the last thing you used, and then turn it off again. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1688 "2025-05-24T22:15:52Z")
That’s not unimportant. Making tools continually harder to use is a major feature of the new capitalism. I feel like hurting someone, perhaps permanently disfiguring them, when I face this issue, which is of course fairly constantly. If only I knew who it was. ---
**Author:** ![DaveUnknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@DaveUnknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveUnknown)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1689 "2025-05-24T22:27:48Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > My pacemaker app occasionally asks me that. Whoa! ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1690 "2025-05-25T12:37:55Z")
When **Sr. Weasel** tells me he’s going to be done at a certain time, and then he blows past that time without informing me, it drives me _apeshit._ Twenty-three years of this. You would think my brain would automatically adjust after literal decades of him doing it, but it makes me so mad. While we’re on the subject, him disappearing into the bathroom for twenty minutes when we’re about to walk out the door. 🤬 If you know we’re leaving at a certain time just get ready twenty minutes earlier. Why is that so hard? ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1691 "2025-05-25T15:21:30Z")
My husband occasionally does this. In his mind, “we need to leave by 2pm” means that’s the time to start getting ready. We’ve been together for a long time and he’ll mostly listen if I prompt him early, but he really has no clue how long it actually takes him to do stuff. No, you can’t shower and get dressed in under 5 minutes. Some people probably can, _you_ need at least 10 and often 20. The drive to (wherever) might be 15 minutes, but you need an extra 5 minutes to find parking and then get to the spot you need to be. Just one of those things I’ve learned to live with but it can be infuriating. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1692 "2025-05-25T15:31:15Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > In his mind, “we need to leave by 2pm” means that’s the time to start getting ready. I have to battle that continuously. A significant portion of my head is determined to think that the time I need to do something about a 2:00 appointment is 2:00. I need to write the lists not as “do X at 2:00” but “leave by 1:30” and then set an alarm for 12:00 to allow time to find a stop point in whatever I’m doing, put away whatever needs putting away, and then get ready to go to town. So the 2:00 appointment basically kills the whole afternoon, by the time I get back again. ETA: it occurs to me that this worked a whole lot better when I was a child in school: because if a given class started at 2:00 the previous one let out at 1:55 and I was within less than a five minute’s walk of the next one and had nothing I needed to do inbetween. Even college was a whole lot more like that than my life is now. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1693 "2025-05-25T15:39:47Z")
I find if I phrase things like that for him,it really helps. “We need to leave by 2pm, so lunch should be done by 1, we should all have showered and dressed by 1:45…”. He’ll still wander away while we’re at the door to do something “quick” but I’ve learned to account for that. I can still find myself baffled when he’s “ready to go” but doesn’t have his shoes on. We have different definitions of these things! ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1694 "2025-05-25T16:36:33Z")
My husband thought every drive took “20 minutes” although it actually took him 20 minutes to get his shoes on and out to the car , without accounting for traffic/parking. He mostly got cured the time we showed up 5 minutes late for a restaurant reservation and his sisters showed up even later and we lost the table. I pointed out that the way he felt while we were waiting was the way I always felt waiting for him. Might have been the first time i his life he had to wait for someone. Still only mostly cured, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1695 "2025-05-25T17:01:12Z")
More frustrating than infuriating, or rather anxiety generating: Being on edge awaiting a much anticipated phone call or text, one that should be forthcoming…that doesn’t arrive. More accurately, I can hear _not_ arrive. Sort of the aural version of not staring at the watch pot waiting for it to boil. Drives me batty. I’ll go outside the house and walk around it or do some chores Go into another room to do something that generates some noise ( run a fan, wash my hands and face ) just to be able to convince myself that my awaited call _could have_ come, while being unable to hear it, to set my mind at ease. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1696 "2025-05-25T17:08:22Z")
It always pisses me off to wait for people. Any time it happens, I spend that time kicking myself for allowing myself to get in that situation. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1697 "2025-05-25T18:50:20Z")
I have a friend who occasionally just doesn’t show up to planned engagements. No text, nothing. She’s the withdrawing type when she’s going through stuff, and I get mental health issues, but come on. Not even a text? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1698 "2025-05-25T19:00:05Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > Nobody wants that dumb multi-function pushbutton. They just want light to come on when they press it and light to go off when they press it again. I dont use it hardly ever. But nor am I lost in the wilds and need to signal. One of my pet peeves is drug ads. Now, they bring a lot of $$ to TV and that is a Good Thing. But they show that people AFTER taking the wonder drug are able to devote their lives doing fun and interesting things- things they dont do now. I mean, few show them just going to work, coming home eating dinner, watching TV, going to bed. > [@mnemosyne](#): > > My husband occasionally does this. In his mind, “we need to leave by 2pm” means that’s the time to start getting ready. We’ve been together for a long time and he’ll mostly listen if I prompt him early, but he really has no clue how long it actually takes him to do stuff. No, you can’t shower and get dressed in under 5 minutes. My wife does this- and _every.damn.time_ she comes down and says she is ready- BUT she has to go back upstairs for something- and that _always_ takes 20-30 minutes. (Mind you we have a downstair bathroom). ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1699 "2025-05-25T19:01:09Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > She’s the withdrawing type when she’s going through stuff, and I get mental health issues, but come on. Not even a text? I occasionally did that when I was very depressed, couldn’t get up in the morning and was too weak and also embarrassed to call in to cancel an appointment. Don’t judge her too hard when that happens, as long as she apologizes later, which I always did. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1700 "2025-05-25T19:01:47Z")
I feel for you folks dealing with late people. Or time blind or whatever. My Wife and I never have this problem. When, say, we are meeting each other and even coming from opposite directions, we often bump into each other in the parking lot. It’s sort of a running joke with us. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712.md?page=84) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712.md?page=86)