Everyone’s got their pet peeves. Here are some of mine.
Flakes
If you’re going to bail on your plans with someone else, fine. Just let them ahead of time so that they can make other arrangements. Show some respect for their time.
People who talk during movies
This is a movie theater. We paid to come here and enjoy the THX surround sound. Everyone else is quiet. Have some courtesy and shut your mouth.
Ringtones that could wake the dead
Come on, people. Turn them down a bit. Everyone in the room/building/country doesn’t need to know that you are receiving a call.
And why is it that these people are the ones who always seem to have trouble finding their phone or figuring out what button to push to silence it?
Overused stock sound effects
OK, so you have a radio ad, and you need to convey that the product or service you are offering will help you accomplish something in the morning. Or maybe you’re trying to find more listeners for your great morning radio show. Why not play that really annoying ALARM CLOCK sound and let it play for about 10 seconds longer than it needs to?
Or maybe your product or service is related to driving or traffic. Why not play that really annoying PASSING TRUCK HORN sound?
These two sound effects in particular make me change the radio station so fast that I nearly get into car accidents.
Groups of people who walk side-by-side on a busy sidewalk or in a busy hallway
This is not so much a problem when you are walking toward them, as they can see you, and only the most dickish people will stay in your way. It’s worse when you’re behind them, naturally in a hurry, and you can’t get past.
Come on, people. Take a look at the width of the thoroughfare and the width of your group and have some consideration.
Being ignored
If I ask you something, answer it if you can. If you can’t answer it, tell me that. If you’ll get back to me later, tell me that. If I’m being an asshole, tell me that. Just give me a response, any response.
Being ignored sends a message: You are utterly worthless to me.
People ignoring the Reply All button on group emails
Great, I got your reply. But this is a group conversation. Everyone else needs to know, too.
People who create new email threads with new subject lines instead of responding to an existing thread
OK, maybe I’m nitpicking here. But it’s annoying when a person overtakes my inbox with multiple threads.
Asking someone multiple questions and getting only one of them answered
You need to know a few things, so you send off a handful of fair, easy questions to someone. But the only one that get answered is, most often, the last one.
What’s the solution to this? Should I send three messages with one question each? Or sequentially send messages with single questions and wait for answers before sending the next?
As rich as the English language is, there doesn’t seem to be an expression for a person with this kind of habit, so I’ll create one: single-threaded responder.
People who say things without considering that the listener might not understand
Makes me crazy when people make no effort to make sure they are being understood. At best, it shows a careless lack of perspective-taking, but in cases where someone is doing it to test the other person or make them feel inferior, it can be downright rude.
There doesn’t seem to be an expression for this kind of habit, so I’ll create one: conversational perspective indifference.
Jaywalking in front of my moving car
I have no problem with people darting across the street between blocks or even when they have a “Don’t Walk” signal. I do it, too. But when I need to slow down or stop so that they can cross the street, it almost makes me want to speed up. I’ve had people give me attitude when I don’t respect their recklessness, and that makes it even worse.
Cutting/pushing in line
How can someone do this and think it won’t piss other people off?
When there is already a single line leading to multiple cashiers but some joker decides to create his own line in front of a specific cashier to get served more quickly
Really?
Being admitted into an overly crowded club and being told by a bouncer “you can’t stand there”
Sometimes, there is nowhere else to stand. When I ask the bouncer where I should go, they say “I don’t know, but you can’t stand there.”
When you ask someone to do something for you, they offer to do it, and then they ask you to remind them to do it
The thing here is that they’ve offered to do something for you. Maybe they could burn a calorie and make a note? Asking you to remind them to do something you have asked them to do seems obnoxiously lazy.
Making no effort to be understood
Explaining something complicated? Trying to teach something? Want to make a point? Don’t be a douche and insist that your words are perfect. Use the right language and adjust if the listener isn’t getting it. Not considering the perspective of others make me crazy.
Low speaking volume
I get that some people have soft voices, or sometimes there is a lot of ambient noise. But you are talking to someone in a quiet room and they can’t hear you, there is a problem.
The best is when you tell one of these people to speak up and they continue speaking at exactly the same volume or blame you for being deaf.
People who scream when they talk
Yes, the other extreme. Doesn’t matter if you’re standing right next to them, they’ll speak like you’re in the next room.
These people also usually spit when they talk.
Black and white thinking
I’m a logical person, and I love breaking things down into their simplest elements. It’s amazing how many things really can be broken down into one of two extremes. But it doesn’t work with everything. Politics, relationships, and jobs are complicated systems with human emotions attached, and expecting absolutes is asking for trouble.
I might even argue that it is the careful navigation through the gray areas of life that play a big role in how happy and successful we are.
People with bad breath
If you spend any amount of time with someone, it’s obvious whether or not they brush regularly. Someone with periodontal disease will stop you in your tracks.
If you don’t care about your oral hygiene, that’s fine. But consider the people who have to smell your rotten mouth gas.
Overly chatty waiters
I came for food, and I might be in a hurry. Or maybe I’m with an old friend and we’re catching up or I’m having an emotional conversation with a partner. In just about every case, I don’t want to stop everything and divert my attention for your silly courtesies, to hear you tell me that you’re going to introduce yourself and that you’ll be taking care of me today, or to hear you go through sections of the menu that I have no interest in. Let me ask the questions.
People who do the “rest in peace” thing with a napkin when they’re done with their meal
Yes, technically the lettuce in your salad or your steak is dead, but we don’t need to formalize it with a napkin draped over your plate and moment to memorialize its soul.
Rude drivers
Leave the fast lane open for those who are in a hurry. Use the turn signal, and THEN apply the brakes. Be fair when it’s time to merge. Let someone change lanes if they have to. Please.
A sense of entitlement has killed the pleasures of communal driving. If they want to get in your lane, they’ll get in whether or not it’s convenient for you. The little wave you used to get from the car in front of you when you did something nice is long gone because people no longer ask for road. They take road.
Cars that pull in front of you and drive more slowly than you were driving
How clueless can you be? This is annoying at best and dangerous at worst.
SUVs in parking spaces labeled for compact cars
Really? You might as well put a little note that says “Fuck you” on every other car in the parking lot. Worse is when you see them swing their door open and hit your car.
Even worse is the asshole who takes two spots for his (yes, I bet it’s a male 90% of the time) fancy car. If your car is that nice, keep it in your climate-controlled garage on a giant velvet pillow.
Bad customer service
The #1 goal of a business is to make money. Unfortunately, some businesses don’t feel that good customer service is required to reach that goal.
Take my issue with American Airlines, for example. They lost my bags and then proved to be totally incompetent in retrieving them and compensating me for my inconvenience.
Then there’s the jacket I bought at Westco in Perth, Australia that fell apart the first day I wore it. When I went back to the store a few days later on a cold, blustery day, the salesgirl refused to accept the return because I was wearing the jacket. Since it had been worn, she claimed, she could not take it back. How can a jacket break UNLESS it has been worn, I wonder? That shitty jacket is still hanging in my closet.
And there was the time that my T-Mobile cell phone stopped receiving calls. I could MAKE calls just fine, so I wasn’t fully aware of the issue for over a month. After the headache of getting their technical support to fix the problem, T-Mobile offered to give me 50% refund on the previous month since, according to them, my phone was 50% useable during the time period in question. Well yes, I suppose that’s correct. But would anyone really ever spend half price for a phone that could make calls but not receive them? No.
When you encounter bad customer service, the easy solution is to spend your money elsewhere. If enough people do this, the business suffers. In a rare case of retail justice, American Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2011.
Sitting in traffic
Here’s a great idea for civilization: put America’s entire workforce into gas-burning vehicles twice a day at the exact same time. I can’t think of a bigger waste of time, resources, and sanity.
One of the best things about the pandemic was giving much of America’s workforce an opportunity to work from home and avoid the tragedy of daily traffic.
Multiple phone numbers
So if I want to reach you, I should try your cell or your work cell or your home or your work phone? No. Don’t inconvenience others with your multiple phone numbers. If you have some weird reception issue with your cell phone or don’t have one at all, sort out your life with new cell phone service or a free Google Voice number so that you can give people one number to reach you at.
And it works the other way, too. What’s with all the online forms with spaces for cell phone numbers, home phone numbers, work phone numbers?
Let’s simplify, people. It’s 2013.
Long outgoing voicemail messages
Yes, I know that the number I just dialed (yes, let me hear it again in slow motion) is not available, and I know that I can hang up after I leave my message. How many millions of dollars of extra usage is this costing the consumers of the world?
Can I hit “1” or “#” to skip this? No. I have to pay AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint for the privilege of listening to it.
Contrived acronyms and bacronyms
The government and NASA are fond of these. The USA PATRIOT Act is the Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism. Space agencies seem particularly bent on doing this. There’s ARIES (Australian Resource Information and Environment Satellite), ARTEMIS (Advanced Relay TEchnology MISsion), and the European Space Agency has JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer).
No, it’s not clever.
Arrogance
Might be at the top of my list.
ar·ro·gance
noun \ˈer-ə-gən(t)s, ˈa-rə-\
: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrogancear·ro·gance
[ar-uh-guhns]
noun
offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/arrogance
Nobody likes an arrogant prick, but I have a deep, visceral reaction to them. When forced to engage them in conversation, it makes my blood boil.
Inside jokes that are not understood by everyone present
That’s just rude.
Managementspeak (or corporatespeak)
I don’t know exactly where in the professional ranks it happens, but sooner or later, people start twisting the English language in strange ways when they communicate in the workplace.
They choose to “speak to” things rather than “speak about” them. They’ll use a website form to “search against” something rather than “search for” something. The deadline for the project is TBD, but probably COB or maybe even EOD. And there are always “opportunities”, which mean that they think something really sucks.
The expression “Wait for it…”
No, it doesn’t make it funnier.
The expression “‘Nuff said.”
It’s often used by people who are trying to be funny and feel important but don’t really know what they are talking about. In most cases, there is quite a bit more that needs to be said.
The expression “It is what it is.”
Oh really? What isn’t?
The expression “as of yet”
Extra words waste my life.
People who “could care less” or “could give two shits”
That means you care, genius.
Grammar/punctuation Nazis
It’s OK to be a stickler, but make sure you are correct when you get up someone’s ass for how they used quotation marks.
Missing serial/Oxford commas
Without them, lists can be confusing to read. Use the serial comma. Always. Grammar Girl says it best:
Here’s a sentence that could mean different things with and without the final comma:
“Rebecca was proud of her new muffin recipes: blueberry, peanut butter and chocolate chip and coconut.”
Without a serial comma, you can’t be sure whether the last recipe is a combination of peanut butter and chocolate chip or a combination of chocolate chip and coconut.
Another case where leaving the comma out can be confusing is when the later items in the list can describe an earlier item. An oft-cited example is the made-up book dedication:
“To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.”
A reasonable reader would assume there are four entities being thanked: mom, dad, Ayn Rand, and God; but without the serial comma you could also conclude that the two parents are Ayn Rand and God. A serial comma clears up any confusion:
“To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.”
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/serial-comma.aspx
Oh, APA style says we should not use it? Then APA style is dumb.
Irrational patriotism
OK, so you like America. That’s great. But don’t get all pissed off and defensive when you can’t articulate why you like it so much. And don’t threaten to beat my ass when I say that the Statue of Liberty is built like a softball player. (Yes, it happened.)
People who say “don’t judge”
Why not? Everyone is the same? More people should judge more often, I think.
People you have a conversation with who never actually agree with anything you say
When you make a point, they will go on to make another point, often tangential and irrelevant to the point of discussion. Does skipping by your point mean that they are agreeing with you or disagreeing with you? It’s OK, agreeing with you does not show weakness.
People who make everything dramatic
You know the type. They had to spend an extra few minutes in line to buy groceries/vote/get a new driver’s license/take a shit, and they can’t get over the injustice of it all. It’s going to snow, and the extra time driving into work/getting batteries/shoveling snow/putting on boots is going to throw off their schedule for a year.
These people need to spend a year in an African village or an Indian slum and see what real problems look like.
Police officers with attitude problems
The dick quotient is probably higher in law enforcement than in any other field. I’ve encountered one in my life who treated me respectfully. The one who cited me for public urination was particularly dickish.
Dishonesty
Nobody likes a liar.
Greed/entitlement
Gimme, gimme, gimme. I need this, I need that. Too many people will take as much as they can as often as they can, whether or not it’s fair or they deserve it. Whether in a restaurant or retail environment or mooching off the government, they’ll fabricate complaints to get something for free.
Is this an American epidemic, or is it international?
Virtual relationships replacing real relationships
Facebook and Twitter have their uses, but people have become way too comfortable maintaining superficial relationships with them and isolating themselves. People don’t really connect with each other in a healthy, meaningful way anymore. Society is fucked.
Rebates that are a pain in the ass
It’s a good pitch in the store, but when you get home and read all the fine print, you have to spend an hour filling out forms and cutting up boxes. Then you have to drop it in a mailbox and hope that it gets delivered to the right place on time. Then you have to mark a date on your calender eight weeks out so that you know when to start complaining when you haven’t received your rebate check. Then you put your head through a wall when you complain to customer service and they don’t respond.
Shouldn’t there be an easier, electronic way to do this?
FM radio
If your angle is “fresh music” or “the newest hits”, don’t be playing some shitty-ass Goo Goo Dolls song from 1998. I don’t need to hear the same twelve songs in rotation. I don’t need to be yelled at by your DJs. I don’t need to be reminded which station I’m listening to every five minutes. Pro tip for advertisers: If your commercial is not obnoxious, it will stand out from the rest.
Over-bassy, over-enunciating, repetitive, sensationalist radio hosts
You’re neither smart nor funny. You’re just annoying. And every FM radio station seems to have a job for you.
I guess they’re appealing to a certain demographic. Just not sure what that demographic is.
TV
Reality television is ruining humanity.
Sportscasters gratuitously saying “National Football League” or “National Hockey League”
Spoken by insecure or untalented sportscasters. It’s an attempt to sound more authoritative and a chance to say more words so that they have more time to think about what they’re going to say next. A good sportscaster would never utter the full name of whatever league they happen to be calling games for.
Imagine if I was describing a new product by International Business Machines or telling you about my day at work with the American Association of Retired Persons. Obnoxious.
TV commercials that are three times louder than the movie you are trying to watch
If I have to keep reaching for the remote every time we go to commercial, you’re going to lose me as a viewer.
Deceptive advertising
The Big Mac never looks that good. The Wendy’s cashier is never that good-looking. Tech support never speaks English that eloquently and cheerfully. Customer service is never smiling when they talk to you.
Rude wrong numbers
Someone who has already inconvenienced you by wrongly dialing your number will then rudely hang up on you without saying anything. Love it.
Not getting a thank you letter
I spent $150 for the crappy toaster oven on your wedding registry. The least you can do is spend three minutes showing your appreciation.
Waiting forever at the bar for an overpriced drink
I’ve already paid a cover charge. Now I have to force my way to the bar like a salmon, park between other people who are usually more aggressive and always more sweaty, beg for you to mix me a watered down rum and coke, and then give you $12 plus a tip for it. Sure.
Little dogs that don’t stop barking
Shut the fuck up.
People who are always happy
The thing is, people aren’t always happy. The fact that they are acting like they are means that they aren’t allowing you to see who they really are. That makes me nervous.
People who don’t know the difference between generalizing and stereotyping
If I say that most X are like this, it’s OK. Keep your pants on. There’s nothing wrong with commenting on a trend.
If I say that ALL X are ALWAYS like this, that’s bad. Take your pants off.
Bathroom doors that you have to touch
After washing up, the last thing I want to do is handle a door that has handled everyone else’s business. Get a paper towel, right? Well if you’ve got those old school dispensers that require you to crank them for paper towels, that kind of defeats the purpose.
Why can’t all bathroom doors just open outward? A little push with my shoulder and the whole experience would save me a considerable amount of grief.
Trash cans that you have to touch
You have something you need to throw away, and there’s some sort of weird, springy door on top the trash can that you have to force open. You try to force it open with the trash that you are holding, but that never works because the springs are too tight. So you HAVE to use your hands. Really? Are we TRYING to spread disease here?
Elevator doors that take forever to close
You’ll stand there for what seems like an eternity waiting for the doors to close. Finally, they begin to move in slow-motion.
Without fail, someone will swing around the corner and try to make it into the elevator before it closes. You don’t want this to happen, because it means that you will have to spend another eternity waiting for the doors to open and then close again. In this situation, I will often hit the DOOR CLOSE button repeatedly, which to them looks like I am trying to hit the DOOR OPEN button. As the doors close, I do the “Sorry” thing with my shoulders.
People who ask you to hold the elevator and then only go up/down one floor
Come on.
People who conspicuously avoid eye contact
Some people are afraid of a friendly smile hello. This is especially unnerving when it’s someone someone who you’re supposed to be friends with, like a next-door neighbor or coworker.
OK, maybe they just hate me. Or maybe I closed the elevator doors on them.
People who don’t respond when you say “Hey, how are ya?”
Maybe they hate me, too.
People who never say “You’re right” or “I agree” or “Good point” in conversation
We know why you do it. You’re afraid of looking dumb or weak or vulnerable, and to you, those phrases mean that the other person might be more right or smarter than you are. But realize that this is an important part of debate and discussion. If you don’t acknowledge when the other person has enlightened you, you limit the scope of the conversation and you leave the other person feeling like you’re disagreeable and difficult to talk to.
Folding a fitted sheet
It comes all square and cute in the package from Bed, Bath & Beyond, but once you get it out, it’s subject to a life of uncoordinated, jellyfish-like floppiness as you try to fold it for the shelf in your linen closet.
Oh wait, there is a way.
Trying to open clamshell pills when you’re sick and weak
Ever been deathly ill, used all of your energy to get to the bathroom, and opened your medicine cabinet to find NyQuil LiquiCaps in an impossibly stiff, hermetically sealed, hard plastic clamshell package? And using all of your flu-weakened grip strength, you nearly give yourself a stroke trying to open it? Come on, Vick’s.
People who think I don’t have a sense of humor because I don’t laugh at their jokes
Come on, people. Maybe you’re not funny? When people don’t laugh at your clever remarks, take note. Consider that you’re not funny and that you might be even annoying.
When you’re cutting tags off of clothes and tiny plastic pieces fall into carpet or into bed and just disappear
Maybe this is an OCD thing, but the thought that there is a tiny piece of plastic lost down there somewhere drives me crazy.
The sizable amount lotion or cream you can’t get out of the container because you’re using a pump dispenser
I hate being wasteful, but this is wasteful AND annoying. There’s too much overhead in the form of inaccessible product when using these contraptions. They should be banned.
Lack of perspective-taking that takes place when somebody launches into an explanation like you’re an idiot
Consider who you’re talking to and fairly assess their knowledge on the subject before you open your mouth.
Companies with recycling bins for appearances without a proper recycling program
I’ve seen cleaning staff dump the recycling with the regular trash. I’ve also seen recycling bins that people throw unrecyclable trash into. Let’s stop pretending. This behavior does not save the Earth.
When people say someone is “hysterical”
This word has been appropriated by idiots. They think it means that someone is funny, but it really means that someone is exhibiting uncontrolled and extreme emotion.
When people say something is “hysterical”
It doesn’t really make sense to label inanimate things with an emotion. People say that a movie was hysterical, but would it make sense to call a movie angry or generous or jealous?
People who speak with absolute truths
“That movie was awful!” vs. “I didn’t like that movie.”
Have a little humility and express that you are delivering an opinion.
When you realize someone is faking friendliness and really just wants your money
You see this a lot in sales. And they wonder why we hate salespeople.
Pretending
People love to pretend that they’re happy, that their relationships are great, the kids are amazing, that their job is wonderful. This pretending means that they are avoiding an unpleasant reality, making it impossible to recognize and address and improve the unpleasant thing in any real way.
Faucets in restaurants with sensors that don’t work
You end up with your hands partially wet and partially soapy, and then you start waving your hands around like a madman. The faucet laughs at you. Finally, after a few teasing drips, you’re able to almost rinse your hands. And then there are no paper towels.
Elevator buttons that tease you
I don’t like how you can push an elevator button hard enough to momentarily illuminate it but not hard enough for it to register as a full push.
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