start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3

sometimes when they ask "how are you", to punish them I want to say "I'm at the end of my rope and don't know how I'm going to get through the afternoon. how about you?"

Wasn't picking his brain what killed Trotsky?

sometimes when they ask "how are you", to punish them I want to say "I'm at the end of my rope and don't know how I'm going to get through the afternoon. how about you?"

Well, that's what that part of the conversation is there to determine, right? Or more prosaically "I'm really busy at the moment, if it's not very urgent then go ask Bob" "No it's
Fine I'll ask Bob / maybe ring you tomorrow".

But it's an instant message (or Skype or whatever) you'll answer it when you answer it, there's no need for the availability dance. A phone call would be different.

It happened to me last Friday on irc (lol, 80s).

But it's an instant message (or Skype or whatever) you'll answer it when you answer it

<malfunctioning robots sparks>

years ago when i was in china, a friend sent me a string of messages going "please do me a small favour, pleeeeeeease". he wouldn't tell me what the favour was until i said i'd do it, but i said i'm not doing shit until i know what the favour is. this went on for an hour and a half before he revealed the favour, which was to give a small, easily transportable piece of artwork to someone. that was all it was.

I like Andrew Farrell's suggestion. Considering setting my out-of-office replies to just say GO ASK BOB. Especially since I don't work with anyone named Bob.

The "How are you?" conversation in corporate-land is v v weird, its like a handshake but more drawn out and awkward. Amuses more than IAs tbh.

linkedin. it's swill. all of it. the way people have profiles that say things like "building a cutting-edge paradigm to propel your business into the future". the way people post shit to their linkedin wall (?) that's just a link to something like "17 ways to supercharge your corporate effectiveness in the enterprise", with their own comment that says "this is crucial" but with buzzwords instead of actual words. the way recruiters send you messages saying "heads up going forward i'd like to put you forward for this role which matches the work you were doing 12 years ago heads up going forward" when all they really want to do is harvest your cv and boast about how many candidates they have on their books.

this one guy i've never met or even heard of, but who once worked for the same giant company i once worked for (and not even at the same time), has been inviting me to connect every couple of weeks for the best part of a decade. hundreds and hundreds of requests. i don't get it.

I don't get it either.

And you may not want to request a "connection" with me. Every day, my inbox has subject lines that say things like, "Autumn Almanac is still waiting for you to respond to his invitation!" even though I damn well know that person clicked on a connect button on my profile and promptly forgot about it.

the linkedin nagfest is insane. i've had it all marked as email spam for ages because there's so much linkedin won't let you turn off. it's like internet mould.

You should watch this TED talk #soinspirational

nice

I'm a hypocrite cos I sometimes do this too, but when people on FB post "open invites", i.e. "I'm having a birthday get together at <place>, open invite all are welcome".

I'm like a vampire in that I feel like I need a formal invite before I show up somewhere and if this person isn't one of my closer friends, I always wind up having to think "do I know this person well enough that they won't arch an eyebrow if I show up" and then just decide not to go.

then again, though, I did have a relationship start this way (posted an open invite for the movie "Bullitt" and a friend I'd only recently met decided to join me and we eventually dated) so it's not all bad

I figure people do this because they're afraid of people feeling slighted if they actually invite people and leave someone off.

People who never close out of shared spreadsheets at work. I use one spreadsheet for 80% of my work, and every morning when I come in and try to open it it's locked for editing because my boss opened it up last night and left her computer on overnight. She comes in hours later than me so I have to send an email asking her to close out of it and then wait.

Not being able to co-edit in Excel (as one can in most other applications) is a major annoyance - quite apart from your boss's inconsiderate violation of good check-in/check-out etiquette. Which is also annoying.

(BTW I have asked MSFT People Who Know Things about that, and it is a long-known hurdle - possibly relating to how editing in zone x you could mess with formulas in zone y. Not sure it's a high priority to address, though.)

Not really bitching. More of a wtf about a co-worker.

Her car battery went out and she asked for a jump. Sure, I keep cables in my car because of my own fragile battery. While we're walking out there, she tells me she thinks she drained the juice by leaving her hazard lights on.

I'm thinking for a second - I see cars all the time out on the highway with their hazards on. I assume they can last for awhile. She had parked the car after lunch, just four hours ago.

And then I wonder and ask her, Why were the hazard lights on in the first place? She says she was about to parallel park her car when someone drove up right behind her and stayed on her bumper. Why not use the blinker instead? Because, she wanted him to know how adamant she was about parking.

I hook up the cables and get her engine cranked. While we're giving it a moment to warm up, I ask, then why did you leave the hazards on? Oh, she says. She could've swore she checked before she locked it up, but she must've looked at the dash during that exact moment when they had blinked off.

Not really that I or A. Just annoyed sometimes that these people get paid more than me.

jfc

what an achievement for her that she can manage to breathe in AND out

i wouldn't say the neighbour's new scooter has an alarm with a hair trigger but it's just been set off by the rain.

seriously, it goes off 5 times a day. you only have to look at it slightly hard and 'woo, woo, woo'

People who line up far too close behind me.

Like yeah, if you invade my personal space even more aggressively, the line consisting of two or more people ahead of me will surely go faster. Stupid fucking assholes.

I feel like I should carry around some small business cards that have something on them like, "Hello, you are receiving this card because you have taken some action that may lead to causing a person with diagnosed social anxiety a panic attack. Please be more mindful of the implications of your actions and body language. Thank you."

But then, I'd probably become the villain for actually calling people out on their (perhaps unintentionally) aggressive behavior.

Maybe just fart?

Yeah hate that too close behind you thing. Like being in a queue beside your supermarket purchases on a conveyor belt beside you & them pushing into the back of you or pushing a trolley into you.
I'd assume most people would be trying to stand beside their stuff not be pushed forward of it because somebody ahead of you was making a bulk buy.

I hate when people walk closely enough behind me that I can hear their conversation. They don't even have to be talking loud, but I'm close enough that I'm essentially a listening participant. I didn't sign up for this.

sitting in the park eating my lunch i demand a personal exclusion zone with a 2 metre radius, anyone walks past any closer than that & it's side-eye time.

I'm actually not joking when I say that I save my farts for the smokers who don't abide by the twenty foot rule in California. I'm pretty shameless with it when I see them outside Starbucks. There is a particular group of about five dudes who just sit about ten feet from the door and chain smoke. I literally make a loop around them while forcing it. I know they've heard it on more than one occasion.

thing that drives me up the wall when I get off the train after work and have to walk up a hill to my car and this fucknut makes it his mission to pass me, walk five steps in front of me and blow his cigarette smoke into the wind so that it blows back into my face. I really now believe that all smokers are worse than Trump, and that includes Obama when he was a smoker.

thing that drives me up the wall when I get off the train after work and have to walk up a hill to my car and this fucknut makes it his mission to pass me, walk five steps in front of me and blow his cigarette smoke into the wind so that it blows back into my face.

You need to kick this prick in the back of his knee with all your strength.

dip his smokes in antifreeze

i get ia at people who are extremely bothered by cig smoke unless they have like COPD, asthma, or are allergic or whatever

Duel

thing that drives me up the wall when I get off the train after work and have to walk up a hill to my car and this fucknut makes it his mission to pass me, walk five steps in front of me and blow his cigarette smoke into the wind so that it blows back into my face. I really now believe that all smokers are worse than Trump, and that includes Obama when he was a smoker.

As a smoker who walks fast naturally, maybe you need to just pick up the pace a bit. I hate having to pass people/let my exhaled smoke blow behind me but I also hate slowing my pace to stay in the clear area behind some dawdler.

Do you need a doctor's note to find an odor unpleasant? I find dog shit unpleasant, and I haven't been diagnosed with canicacaphobia or anything.

Smokers themselves tend to become nose-blind to it (as one naturally would become, to something burning two inches from yr nose). So I am not sure they're necessarily the best people to decide whether others are being too sensitive or w/e.

i just grew up around a friend group of smokers and habituated smoky pubs for years and i am very glad that there's a smoking ban now and you don't have to be in an enclosed space with some now but i just cannot bring myself to give a shit if someone is outside having a cigarette and they happen to be in my vicinity.

xxpost dude is a foot taller than me, and always pushes past to get in front of the pack, but then slows a bit to stay just at the speed where he's right in front of me, but passing him would take like three blocks.

i like to imagine that this guy is a massive passive smoking troll and gets off on this routine

taste my fumes non-smokers!

I mean I get it that he's been sitting on the train waiting for a chance to light up, probably feeling an itch in his lungs and throat, and when he reaches freedom and brings flame to face he gets that burst of energy that propels him forward. Then as the smoke fills him he begins to relax and slow his stride.

I also think that when I was younger I was around too many whiny baby boomer smokers who ranted about all the "politically correct" non-smokers telling them they couldn't smoke wherever the hell they wanted to. I'd say fuck them but they're likely all dead by now.

oh yeah i hated those people too.

there's plenty anger to go around

Still mind-boggling that people were once allowed to smoke on airplanes.

Not just that, but divided smoking/non-smoking sections. INSIDE A PRESSURIZED FUSELAGE.

And the seats STILL HAVE "ASHTRAYS" in the armrests.

I'm not sure this belongs here, but anyway. . .

I don't like carrying cash, so whenever I get some, I deposit it into my checking account. So, I did just that about two weeks ago. Now, I still have my money in a credit union back in Reno, so whenever I use the ATM to make a deposit, I can do so without fees at one of what they call the "Co-Op" ATMs at one of the credit unions down here. So, I deposited CASH into the ATM, it cleared (after all, why wouldn't it?), all was well. I go to check my account online just now to see where I'll be after I pay rent tomorrow and two weeks, to the day, after I made the deposit, the credit union where I made the deposit TOOK THE MONEY BACK OUT OF MY ACCOUNT. Under the description it says "Deposit correction." Called my bank and they can basically only see the same thing that I can, so they're just as confused. I was told I would be contacted by a "specialist" by the end of the business day today. But, seeing as we're coming up on 5pm, I doubt it very much.

That is fucking theft. Outright, by definition.

I've already filed a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I'm going to go up in the bank tomorrow and demand my money back, on account of a "Fee correction" and see how well that goes.

Fuck these fucking banks.

You're definitely in the right.

But wouldn't there be a deposit box in the vicinity? The same type where small business owners are always getting robbed at five in the morning?

when you deposit cash into the atm sometimes it gets lost once it gets inside - is it one of those banks that makes you enter in the amount you're depositing first, or is it like BoA's where it can automatically detect the value of the bill you put in? If the former, and if the money somehow got jammed somewhere in the machine or lost, they probably assumed "lol dude chose $xxx deposit and didn't put anything in" and reversed it. not your fault of course. usually a phone call fixes it, some banks/C.U.s though actually check the security footage!

only outright theft that happened to me that I couldn't resolve was this asshole who shall remain nameless (Jon Finberg) who runs EntertheVault.com which sells concert tickets. I bought an Iced Earth ticket one night, and it was p stupid, you didn't get a ticket, you just got added to will call list. Ok, w/e.

Next day, I get a second confirmation via email, which I view as an error. But no, I see a different confirmation number and a second charge on my debit card. At the time of the supposed charge, I was at World of Beer watching football. So I contact them reporting the error expecting a correction.

Finberg tells me that actually, I did buy a second ticket! Uhm, no, I didn't - I bought one the day before on my phone, and at the time he claims I made the purchase, my phone was sitting unused on the bar table. Thought maybe it could have been an accidental resubmission of the order, but he himself said that was impossible, that I would have had to re-enter my info a second time. It's normal, he says, people buy tickets for friends all the time (but I didn't).

After the exchange (and his refusal to investigate), I initiated a chargeback with BoA and they gave me the money back....only to take it back out after the investigation was complete, as this asshole submitted them the alleged work order that my ticket order supposedly generated, and they said "welp this proves you bought it". I got ready to appeal it with BoA (considering the dude probably fabricated the form, it proved nothing), and when I wrote back to Finberg, he basically threatened me with legal action and I was going through mega-stress and said "this isn't worth it".

couldn't even sell the ticket because there was no ticket to sell! and non-transferrable too.

fuck that prick.

No, it just took the cash and counted it automatically. I knew I was in for a ride on the asshole train when my bank contacted me and told me that, in their investigation, the credit union claimed that the ATM only accepts deposits via envelope. Which is a straight up lie. When I called the credit union where the ATM is located, they were exceedingly rude and essentially hung up on me, right after saying, verbatim, "That's YOUR BANK'S PROBLEM, not ours!"

So, I filed the complaint with the CFPB and was advised to file a formal dispute with my credit union.

I feel like I should file a police report as well.