MetaChat - If you spent a whole day acting like the most annoying person/people in your life,

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23 February 2007

If you spent a whole day acting like the most annoying person/people in your life, what would you be doing?→[More:]Me, I'd be not looking at anything people send me for review, until after all the hard work was already done. Only THEN would I say it's all wrong and that it needs to be changed. I would also make it as difficult as possible for people to get what they want from me- they'd need to ask me at least 3 or 4 times. Oh, and I'd be very bitchy about it, too.

post by: ThePinkSuperhero at: 10:36 | 37 comments

Complaining about ghostly running water and wearing a floral housedress.

posted by jonmc 23 February | 10:48

Starting twenty projects, not finishing any of them and getting in my own way a lot.

posted by dabitch 23 February | 11:06

I'd be telling everyone about my 3 condos in 2 different states and blabbing about all my money and how I'm going to retire early. All while being in severe denial of being gay.*

*not: this person to whom I refer is not on MeCha.

Oh, and LOL @ jonmc.

posted by chewatadistance 23 February | 11:09

Repeating myself over and over again, because I'm apparently laboring under the delusion that people don't understand me the first time. Getting louder with subsequent repititions and then getting pissed off when people start tuning out.

Oh, and I would be interrupting myself when I was trying to read.

posted by gaspode 23 February | 11:12

Complaining about everything. And if I didn't have anything to complain about, I'd be tailoring my interaction with people in such a way that I would then have 'grounds' for complaint about them.

posted by essexjan 23 February | 11:26

Claiming that I need money for my school/basketball team/small children when what I'll really do with it is get wasted and demanding that people smile. Shoving crap in people's faces and cursing at them when they make it clear they don't want it.

posted by brujita 23 February | 11:38

penny-pinching, money-grubbing, selling my soul to the devil, patting myself on the back, puffing my chest out, cheating on my wife, pretending to be competent, exploiting workers, social climbing, and calling everyone "Tiger".

posted by taz 23 February | 11:38

Right now, it would be not calling and not showing up to my first day of work after I had given me a second chance at a job that I said I really wanted.

Generally, I'm afraid, I'd be acting pretty much as I do. (Which just means that there aren't too many people who annoy me unduly, so I have plenty of time left over to annoy myself.)

posted by omiewise 23 February | 11:55

Claiming that I need money for my school/basketball team/small children when what I'll really do with it is get wasted and demanding that people smile.

Has Lloyd the crackhead switched trains?

posted by jonmc 23 February | 11:59

I'd be ordering around my whole family in a falsely cheerful voice, being passive aggressive and intimidating everybody around me.

posted by By the Grace of God 23 February | 12:02

I saw him on the N a few weeks ago.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 23 February | 12:02

Speaking in an outside voice whilst inside, putting yourself into every conversation, turning it into being about you you you while using fuck as every other word, bitching and moaning about how life has done you wrong and going on and on and on about what you saw on Oprah and relating it to you (of course!) although the episode had nothing to do with what you're going on about.

posted by deborah 23 February | 12:12

I've seen him on the F--but I was referring to several others as well.

posted by brujita 23 February | 12:19

bitching and moaning about how life has done you wrong
Yeah! Treating everything as if it were a twist of fate rather than a natural consequence of my decision making. Using guilt to coerce. Insisting that everyone who doesn't agree with me now will eventually, when they "get a little older and wiser."

posted by jrossi4r 23 February | 12:35

Well, you see, if I acted like..., oh wait, did I tell you I'm moving in with ..., well no, I guess I didn't tell you because we only just decided a couple hours ago when she called to tell me that..., oops, that's a different story than the one I was telling you, oh, and another thing...

posted by mischief 23 February | 12:43

hm. don't have anyone in my life who's annoying me at the mo, but at my previous employer we had one of those falsely-cheerful passive-aggressive backstabby sorts of Office Twats who combined all the most charming characteristics of "Nina" from Office Space and "Regina George" from Mean Girls.

repeated in one of those ice-pick-to-the-brain type high-pitched little-girl voices: "Corporateaccountspayable, Nina speaking. JUST a moment!"

yes, there is a hell on earth where people do actually answer the phone like this in an open office environment...

posted by lonefrontranger 23 February | 12:44

I'd work in IT support.

posted by TheDonF 23 February | 12:51

Grabbing the remote and flipping channels and talking loudly while I was trying to hear my show.

Being veeeeerrrrrryyyyyy slooooooowwwwww when I am in a hurry then beingveryveryfastandimpatientwhentheslownessturnedintolateness....

posted by bunnyfire 23 February | 12:52

Claiming to be "the last of the Goldwater Republicans."

(Actually that's more just eccentric, but I needed to share.)

posted by rainbaby 23 February | 13:07

Refusing to do the work that was assigned to me, coming up with an entirely new way to do the work that doesn't fit in with anything that was done before, making bogus arguments as to why it should be done my way and pretending not to understand any arguments about why it should be done the normal way, even though three different people presented them to me in a very clear and neutral fashion, then saying it would take a week to do the work the right way when everyone knows it would only take half a day, delaying the project work by a day and requiring 5 people to get together in a room to talk to me, and only backing down when a man tells me to do it, and probably still planning sabotage under my breath.

posted by matildaben 23 February | 13:16

I'd act like someone's protégé, complete with a brown nose and a snitchy attitude. That.

posted by carmina 23 February | 13:31

I'd speak in a very, a very rapidfire, rapidfire, rapidfire manner, a rapidfire manner, constantly, constantly repeating what I'm saying, what I'm saying, being sure to not, to not, not leave a gap in what I'm saying, what I'm saying, so that no one else could, could, could be able to have any, have any, be able to have any input. Any input.

posted by mrmoonpie 23 February | 14:12

I am the most annoying person in my life. I irritate the fuck out of myself.

posted by eekacat 23 February | 14:13

I would be condescending to all my students, giving them little eyebrow-raised half smiles any time they said anything in class and replying with things like, "Really? You really think that? Hmmmm." But I would somehow think this was the Socratic method or something, even though I never let them speak after saying these things. I would spend two hours of classtime having them read things out loud (things that they were already supposed to read for homework), and I would make them all so unsure of themselves in ensuing discussions as to effectively cut off discussion. I would somehow thinks this makes me a good teacher.

Also, I would have a stupid East Coast Ivy League close-shaved beard.

posted by occhiblu 23 February | 14:30

I would have left my job with lonefrontranger so I could go to work with MGL, where not only would I give out creepy faux nicey-nice backrubs but I would also give out passive-aggressive backhanded noncompliments like, "It's so amazing that you're so strong to be a single mother when everyone knows that the children of single mothers just don't turn out okay and it's a hopeless situation." Also, I would talk about church a lot and get all upset because things aren't hierarchical and definite enough and flexibility is just wrong in the eyes of God and I get all upset without a strong male authority figure telling me exactly what to do. If only I knew that that explains more about my marriage than my coworkers ever wanted to know.

posted by mygothlaundry 23 February | 14:35

Did I tell you about the time I..., oh wait, my cellphone's beeping. Hey, how you doing, girl, I was just telling Tim about... You know what, we should order out for Chinese tonight. So, anyway, Christina sent me an email yesterday... [ drifts away babbling ]

posted by mischief 23 February | 14:42

Wow, I want to slap most of us silly :)

posted by gaspode 23 February | 14:42

Btw, this is probably the primary reason why we needed eight years to work through the divorce.

posted by mischief 23 February | 14:43

Gah, mgl, a classmate of mine, who's usually really great, made some comment last night about how there was probably an increase in kid's disordered behavior "because the epidemic of single parents makes everything so chaotic at home." We all just kind of looked at her; the professor at least had the presence of mind to point out that chaos is hardly restricted to one-parent homes.

posted by occhiblu 23 February | 15:13

I would be full of myself, and think of myself as a leader, the glue that holds our little social group together. I would write dramatic, over the top emails to the social group. I would say such stupid, naive, snobby things such as: "We live in a society that really looks out for one another." "I don't feel sorry for all of these troubled teenagers. There are so many people willing to help them, but they choose to live their lives this way."

posted by LoriFLA 23 February | 15:33

mgl: oh man, you *have* met this person, haven't you?!

posted by lonefrontranger 23 February | 15:36

occihi - sounds like my high school english teacher!

posted by muddgirl 23 February | 15:41

"the epidemic of single parents" is a myth.

Considering past wars and illness, today's kids probably have more at-home parents on average than ever before. For many centuries, orphans were the most likely demographic.

posted by mischief 23 February | 16:09

This student is from another, pretty conservative country. Her comment actually made me wonder a bit about how other places are framing these problems (and whether they're calling them exclusively American problems).

Anyway, yes. The whole "black/poor/divorced women are refusing to get married and then descending their crack/meth/lack-of-father-figure babies on us like the plague!" rhetoric is a bit overblown, in any event. It was weird hearing it from a classmate.

posted by occhiblu 23 February | 17:13

Her comment actually made me wonder a bit about how other places are framing these problems (and whether they're calling them exclusively American problems).

My Dad and my stepmom live in Mexico.

Mexico used to be very old-school, if-impregnated-then-married country.

That's been changing lately and, according to my stepmom, a lot of the older generation aren't too pleased with this state of affairs.

posted by jason's_planet 23 February | 20:31

I would be proclaiming all the wonderful things I've ever done for those unappreciative children I rescued from the horrors of maybe going to foster care (because God knows, they'd be dead without me). I would bemoan the fact that two of them left because they couldn't take my "constructive" critcism about their pathetic little lives and went to live with their father. (I would not ever admit to bribing their youngest sibling with an ATV to stay with me)(I would also never admit to telling anyone who'd listen that said youngest sibling probably wasn't his father's kid - or that I said it in front of said kid). I would constantly cause battles with my third husband, yet still pretend everything is fine. I would never have a nice word to say about anyone.

posted by redvixen 23 February | 21:01

I'd be bugging SH to come to my office and give me a lunchtime blowjob and wondering why she doesn't find that idea appealing at all.

posted by sisterhavana 24 February | 11:54

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