MetaChat - Pet peeve alert:

ooh, hey, and here I was just about to post a Kvetch Of The Day thread. Mind if I use yours instead mudpuppie?

Here's mine: Macintard (that would be me) attempting to teach RILLY DUM Outlook User (that would be Director Level Guy I Don't Work With Often and Holy Thank God For That) how to open shared calendars on the Steaming Heap Of Fail that is our network. As follows:

*shows user how to find task pane*

ARGH NO WAIT DON'T CLICK IT MORE THAN ONCE... Shit!

*application crashes*

*restart Outlook*

*wait for hell to freeze over while dixie-cup network synchs with server in New Jersey*

*Explains to user that yes, it "went away" because now you have to re-open it...*

ARGH NO WAIT DON'T CLICK IT MORE THAN ONCE... Shit!

*rinse, repeat, whilst contemplating murdering Bill Gates with a grapefruit spoon*

posted by lonefrontranger 20 November | 15:11

You are in the passenger seat, giving me directions. I am in the driver's seat. I cannot read your mind. DO NOT TELL ME TO TURN LEFT AT THE INTERSECTION WHEN I HAVE ALREADY PASSED IT. Then, do not roll your eyes and say, oh, jeez, now you'll have to make a U-turn. In the middle of this busy street? I ask? I don't know, you reply, I've never had to do that before, since I've always taken the left.

posted by Melismata 20 November | 15:40

You don't mean FLAUNT, you mean FLOUT.

posted by Miko 20 November | 15:51

jesus, Melismata, that might actually earn a real, live face-punching from me, but then I'm kinda high-strung like that.

posted by lonefrontranger 20 November | 16:10

Attention: Girl who works on the other side of my cubicle wall.

It wasn't bad enough when you were bringing your loud, hyperactive first-grader to work with you EVERY GODDAMN DAY after school let out and allowing him to run wild and screaming through the hallways, interrupting conversations, accosting people at their desks, and generally leaving a path of destruction in his wake?

Now you feel it's necessary to bring your new boyfriend to the office with you EVERY GODDAMN DAY after lunch for a 15-minute "So long, see you after work" make-out session? Complete with whispered sweet nothings and loud, lingering, lip-smacking kisses?

[Acch! I'm choking on my own rage over here!]

posted by Atom Eyes 20 November | 16:44

I went fishing for flout the other day.

Mine is still people using LOOSE for LOSE.

posted by eekacat 20 November | 16:55

It's a fell swoop, not foul. I get visions of a murder of stinky, fetid crows swooping on me when it's a foul swoop, and I don't like that.

posted by goo 20 November | 17:07

Suggestion for Atom Eyes: walk over there and politely ask "anything I can help you with???"

Also works when you have small child in hand as it's being returned to sender....

posted by mightshould 20 November | 17:22

I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but when a white person uses descriptors like "bling", I want to choke them. I heard bling used in a Barbie Doll commercial once. Made me want to scream...I also saw an episode of a cartoon called Billy and Mandy (which features the Grim Reaper as a main character) which was done entirely in Ebonics. I somehow found the whole thing completely offensive, though it wasn't really racist. Just very, very stupid.

On a similar note, you ASK a question. For the love of god, please don't AX me! I'm a good person, really! *hides under rug*

posted by sakura 20 November | 17:33

It's a fell swoop, not foul. I get visions of a murder of stinky, fetid crows swooping on me when it's a foul swoop, and I don't like that.

And just to be clear, "fell" doesn't mean swift or some such, it means evil, menacing, and just generally malevolent. It's derived from old English. "A fell beast stalked the moors after dark." Something like that would be appropriate. [I learned this from LOTR]

posted by pieisexactlythree 20 November | 17:41

Hmm, pie, interesting! But I think a fell swoop refers to a decisive action, as in felling a tree (a sharp blow to the base to kill it - *thwock!*). Swift AND menacing, both.

posted by goo 20 November | 17:52

Chinese Democracy sucks. Minor, minor peeve - but there is a tiny little part of me that wishes it weren't so.

Axl is like the schoolyard bully, the mean scary dude you knew in high school who shows up at the reunion shaky from crack ingestion and still mad about something you haven't thought about in decades...

posted by Lipstick Thespian 20 November | 18:14

Regarding germophobes - true story:

A friend is washing his hands. Sees guy zap past him directly from the stall to the exit. (men's room, so assume stall == #2). My friend leaves the restroom just after him, and sees him enter the office supply room. Guy picks up one of those anti-septic hand wipes, goes to the phone, cleans up the handset with the wipe, and uses the phone.

posted by qvantamon 20 November | 18:18

I think qvantamon wandered into the wrong thread. Either that, or he's subtly commenting on the germy skankiness of various GNR members.

posted by mudpuppie 20 November | 18:33

Er, uh, mudpuppie wandered into the wrong thread and assumed everyone else was in the wrong thread, but really they were in the right thread and now they're all laughing at her.

Long day.

posted by mudpuppie 20 November | 18:35

Your breath is bated, not "baited."
And I am pedantic, not "an asshole."

posted by Joe Invisible 20 November | 18:35

A-HA!

IT WAS LT WHO WANDERED INTO THE WRONG THREAD!

I KNEW I WASN'T LOSING MY MIND ENTIRELY.

posted by mudpuppie 20 November | 18:36

No, I can't be 'pacific' about something, but I can be 'specific', you cretin.

posted by essexjan 20 November | 18:54

If something out of the ordinary goes on at work, there are many nosy patients that lurk around and come up with loony excuses to approach me and the patient that is having trouble.

Last week I had a patient in a new, dangerous heart rhythm. It wasn't a lethal rhythm but it was dangerous enough that I was preparing to wheel her to the ER. Another prying patient came over to the desk and said to me, "Isn't it funny how Rooms to Go advertises no money down and no payments until 2010?" (I guess furniture advertisements were the best she could come up with as an excuse to approach.) I smiled and said something like, "yeah", gave a confused look, and got back to my patient.

A couple weeks ago we had a patient fall on the treadmill. I'm bandaging a bloody knee and a few other scrapes. A meddling man comes over to get a closer look and feigns innocence by asking me about coffee creamer.

Get back on your treadmills, people. There is nothing to see here.

posted by LoriFLA 20 November | 19:19

when a white person uses descriptors like "bling"

bling is mainstream enough now that I don't bat an eye, but a related thing is: it always bothers me when white guys who normally speak mostly Standard English go all 'brother' when they casually meet a black guy they don't know already - at work or at a social event or in a store. Suddenly it's all "Hey, thanks man!" "Know what I'm sayin'?" "I hear ya! I hear ya!" and so on.

posted by Miko 20 November | 19:56

It's "take/hand over the REINS," dammit! Reigns is a verb.

posted by casarkos 20 November | 20:07

Dear IT Department:

When I ask if I can do something, you say no.
When I ask if you could do something you say no.
When I ask how we can acheive a certain goal, you say we can't.

I do not believe that the whole company's IT department should be a write-only system.

That is all.

posted by pompomtom 20 November | 20:16

I cannot stand when customers walk right past me to speak to the "man behind the counter". He's a slighty unstable guy who really knows nothing, but hey, he's a man, so he must know more than me. Until he wobbles over in my direction with the customer in tow, and repeats whatever they asked him. This happened to me years ago, when I was a department manager. I explained that we were out of a product to a male customer, only to be called to the office 15 minutes later, for the same question from the same man, because a woman couldn't possibly be right.

posted by redvixen 20 November | 20:18

Oh, and while we're on the subject, it's a MOOT point, not a mute one. Of course I also wish some people would mute their points so I don't have to hear them.

posted by eekacat 20 November | 20:22

I hate the toilet seat cover leavers.
I also hate the pee all over the seat and not wipe it hovering ladies.

There's a third variety of odd at my work, too. The ones who will carefully remove the outer layer of the TP and toss it on the floor, so they aren't wiping with anything that has been exposed to air. Since, you know, wiping up piss with something that may have been breathed on is just uncouth.

posted by kellydamnit 20 November | 20:23

Two from today:

The use of "ignorant" as an exact synonym for "stupid" which just makes the speaker seem to be both of those things. I hate that it's now an automatic insult.

People who stroll down a row of cubicles gradually relaxing their sphincters so as to strafe the unsuspecting with their silent farts should be assigned to share desks with those who like to slip their feet out of their sweaty shoes and rub them on the carpet.

posted by notquitemaryann 20 November | 20:53

I always assumed the scraps of toilet paper on the floor were torn off because they were actually *touching* the floor. Or, you know, sometimes the rolls of TP don't turn on their spindles, so you end up pulling off useless little scraps. I admit to sometimes letting those fall to the floor in frustration.

posted by mudpuppie 20 November | 20:56

I did, too, but I've been in the stall next to the ripping ladies before. Plus, I've never seen two or three feet of TP pooled onto the floor under a roll, but you see it tossed in the corner of a stall

posted by kellydamnit 20 November | 21:06

Miko,
I totally know what you mean, but I call everyone man (including ladies) and say thanks brother (this is a big thing in NYC especially with Muslims and Indian dudes that I know and see every day, it's a sign of affection and both are also part of my hippie upbringing as is my casual swearing). I also use the slang that I grew up with, which is heavily influenced by hiphop, but that was always more of a multicultural affair in NYC than is usually mentioned. However, my slang ends in 1995 and so I'm also equally annoyed by Bling talk, but more in a get off my lawn way.

Also this is why I always go to the bathroom in the woods.

posted by Divine_Wino 20 November | 21:14

It's not "ya" or "ye", It's "Yeah" and "yes". There's a grammar checker on your email for a reason!

And it only makes sense, not since! OOOOOHHHHHH HOW I HATE THAT

posted by lysdexic 20 November | 22:53

I can also comfortably say that Miko wasn't really talking about what I was talking about and that I might be a special case and that many people do "bro it up" around black people and that's weird and awkward and not something that I do, although I do tend to New York it up around natives and we all have a good time.

Also, Dammit but people really do betray their simian nature in the John huh?

posted by Divine_Wino 20 November | 22:54

I've recently moved floors at work (twice actually), and am extremely happy to have moved away from the people on level 7 with their scary toilet-paper habits.

Building gaskets is the thing up there, apparently. I am yet to work out why.

posted by pompomtom 20 November | 23:28

I always assumed the scraps of toilet paper on the floor were torn off because they were actually *touching* the floor.
I think they've been torn off by people who don't want to wipe their junk with a piece of paper that was potentially touched by someone who just wiped their junk and then touched the paper without washing their hands in between. Don't even get me started about people who insist on washing their hands after touching their own genitals, but who are happy to touch their own genitals after having their hands all over buses, trains, escalators, doors, railings and all manner of items that I would suspect are far more germ-laden than the genitals of someone who has access to clean running water in the first place.

Germophobes are going to be the death of our species, I'm sure of it. We'll be wiped out by some as-yet-undiscovered germ that we never got a chance to build immunity to.

posted by dg 21 November | 02:19

It's pronounced 'aitch', not 'haitch'. DO YOU UNDERSTAND??!! IT'S NOT 'HAITCH'!!!!

(and this was on the fricking BBC)

posted by essexjan 21 November | 04:37

You didn't "did good", you "did well" you fucking illiterate fool!

posted by dg 21 November | 05:21

Ooooh! People who wear bluetooth headsets at all times. I'm specifically thinking about the type that has a drop-down microphone as though the person is going to go out on stage and needs to be hands-free so they can do all their sweet moves while singing. Kind of like this.
I hate that shit.

posted by Stewriffic 21 November | 06:31

I always feel defensive about the anti-cell phone, anti-hands-free stuff, because we've been pretty much cell phone-dependent for ... like, 15 years now? My husband is an independent contractor, working at different locations every day, and he's never available by steady phone unless he's home (we still keep our regular phone, though we hardly ever use it)... and I'm always bugging him to start using a hands-free earwire thing so that he doesn't always have the phone itself up against his brain parts, but he resists.

Anyway, I just want to say that this technology isn't always just about trying to look cool, but actually purpose-driven and essential for some people.

posted by taz 21 November | 06:50

DW, I don't doubt that your speech is totally sincere. It's the sudden switching on and off, only in the racially-disparate situation, that weirds me out.

posted by Miko 21 November | 15:38

20 November 2008