I’m right there with you. I’ve never been a drinker…I think in my life I’ve consumed a couple of appletinis and half a beer. But I wish I could enjoy the taste of it. Also never been a coffee drinker, and I know I’m missing out there.
I live across the street from an elementary school. The school’s actual parking lot is fairly small, so street parking on the street in front of my house is in high demand, especially during pick up and drop off times. And once a week when garbage day comes around my neighbors and I have to put our bins on the curb, which effectively blocks a fairly large number of parking spots. When I work from home I try to bring the bins in as soon as they’ve been emptied, but when I have to go to the office I’m not around to do that. And sometimes when I get home I found someone has moved my bins from the curb to my yard so they could park there.
And that rubs me the wrong way for some reason. I get that they haven’t really done anything wrong, but it’s just like a visceral reaction to someone else messing with “my” bins. They don’t even really belong to me; they’re technically city property, but since they’re the ones I use they feel like they’re mine.
What’s worse is when they use that sing-song voice that you’d use on a child. I’ve heard it called “elderspeak”.
But that’s definitely a perfectly justified thing to be annoyed about.
It’s not just medical personnel, or at least it isn’t any more. I had to buy a new computer last year, so I went to the Apple store. The sales guy’s first question to me was “What do we use the old computer for?” It went downhill from there.
I don’t know that objecting to this usage qualifies as “stupid.” It feels very condescending. I recognize that may not be the intent, but I don’t think you and I are the only ones who dislike it.
ETA: Or, what @needscoffee said above.
That’s interesting to me; wondering how old you are (you obviously don’t have to answer!)…I’m 63, and I have no problem being called by my first name in these situations, never have. My father, on the other hand, who would be turning 88 this spring were he still alive, would be in complete agreement with you. I always thought it was generational, but perhaps not.
It’s been happening to me since I was a tiny girl.
I’ve never been happy about it.
Just about a decade younger than you, but I do think it’s generational. It was already transitioning when I was a kid, and I remember calling friends’ parents “Mr” or “Mrs” when my own friends called them “Frank” or “Jane.” And my family was politically left-of-center, so it wasn’t that—growing up in San Diego there were lots of military parents who insisted on “”Ma’am” and “Sir” and that seemed strange to me.
Oddly, my parents had no trouble adjusting and now quite happily exist on a first-name basis with everyone.
Could be worse. We allowed the installation of red curbs in a neighborhood next to a local college because some students would put the bins up on the sidewalk to make space before the bins were emptied. Not cool.
I’m stunned to learn ‘put the bin on the curb’ means in/on the road and not up on the lawn or near the sidewalk. Ours are always on the sidewalk, (no grass berm between sidewalk and road in the city core!), pretty sure we’d get cited if we left them in or on the road. How would snow clearance work? Very confusing.
At my work, we have a messaging system. I always dread it when I see a message from someone saying “Good morning” because that means that the messager is going to send me several lines of small talk one…slow…line…at…a…time instead of just asking me whatever question they want to ask.
Yeah. Addressing me by my first name is more polite to me. I’m 63 btw. Saw a doctor yesterday and she had just gotten married so her last name had changed. I Initially address her as Dr. Smith, and she said well it’s now Jones. OK, Jennifer.
A doctor that is more concerned about their title, is not concerned about me.
We are closing on a house deal. One of the relators assistants screwed up the paperwork and we needed it all filled out again.
She signed off with -
“Have a Blessed Day!”
You aren’t helping with that, bless your heart.
I sometimes do my boss’s job on an acting basis. When I’m doing that, I’m added to an MS Teams chat for all the people in our organization with this job. There’s one person who posts a glurgey “Happy Monday!” “It’s Tuesday!” picture every damn morning.
I actually hate doing this job, and having to see that first thing every day is like icepicks in my eyeballs.
I mean, who the hell celebrates a Tuesday?!?
A nephew of mine that I get along with very well. Used to call me Uncle Enipla. Enough of that. I don’t need titles. We are friends.
Here’s a bit of grammar which make me want to scream every time I hear it:
saying “There’s” instead of There are".
examples:
“There’s two reasons why I’m late.”
“There’s five customers waiting for you in the lobby”
"There’s a million fans who want to see the game "
No,No, No,No,No!!!
There ARE…two, or five, or a million things…
You have my permission to say “There’s” ONLY when there is exactly one thing which you are talking about.
Otherwise, I will get mad, and might attack you with a banana. Or a pointed stick. [/monty python]
Something that happens right here on this board. I wouldn’t say it annoys me, but it does make me roll my eyes.
“I wasn’t sure which forum to put this in. Mods, please feel free to move it if I chose the wrong one.”
If it’s in the wrong place, the mods are going to move your thread. They don’t need your blessing. They aren’t going to ask your permission.
There’s no reason I should feel this way. I recognize that the poster is just trying to preemptively say “sorry if I screwed up.”
Another one that grates on my nerves is the misuse of “to be honest” in recent years. Not just here, but everywhere. “What’s the weather going to be like today?” “To be honest, it’s supposed to rain.” Huh? Like, you were going to lie about it, then at the last second decided to tell the truth?
Heh. I tried dropping “Aunt” with a beloved relative once I became an adult… once. She is dead now, but her husband is still “uncle.” Maybe it’s an ethnic thing, who knows.
I call my parents-in-law by their first names because that’s their preference, but after 20 years it still feels weird to me. “Older relatives get titles” is deeply ingrained.
S/he says “Happy Monday, It’s Tuesday” every day of the week? Sounds like a very, very confused person! 
Me too…drives me nuts, particularly when I hear it in news reports. I also listen to a lot of British news podcasts, and it’s doubly frustrating to hear it there (totally classist of me, I know, but I like to think that if someone’s been trained to speak in RP in the country where English was invented…)
That seems like a learned verbal tic. Like John McCain getting stuck on “My friends…” at the beginning of almost every pronouncement. Our Premier Doug Ford has started apporximately eighty zillion sentences in speeches with “Folks…” There was a guy in my film school who, in pretty much every single Q&A with a visiting luminary, would start his question with “I’m curious…” I myself use “basically…” far too much.