I'm off to Phoenix for business. I'm not sure if I'll be able to log on and respond until late at night. Please feel free to respond or rant.
Okay, just by the title you might have figured out that I’ve recently seen a George Carlin special on HBO. I have to give it to George, but he does have a way of resonating with me. Back to the subject at hand.
People that think they’re special.
There are several examples in this category. First is the driver who feels they’re too special to wait in an orderly line of traffic so they speed along in the flowing lane only to cut over at the last minute. What REALLY pisses me off is the one’s that block the flowing traffic so they can butt in front of the line.
Then there are the idiots that literally ride your bumper. Actually I think there are some that know what they’re doing here (the jackasses) and those that are oblivious to the fact that they’re within 20 feet while traveling 70 miles per hour in rush hour traffic (the idiots). The jackasses ride right on your bumper even as they know you can’t go anywhere because of the cars in front of you or to your right. When you finally can move over they fly by giving you THAT LOOK or worse yet, THAT FINGER. If they’re idiots, they just drive like they have no idea what’s going on.
Lastly on my list is the idiot who blocks the busy intersection at a red light by trying to squeeze through. Then they look at the people they’re blocking with their hands in the air looking surprised.
Texting Drivers.
There’s a new wave of idiots out there and I see examples of them every day. People that text or do email while driving. They weave around in their lanes while they’re trying to find that elusive letter on their tiny QWERTY keyboards. I mean it’s bad enough to talk on a cell phone and drive, it’s another level of complexity to call somebody on the cell phone. You enter the realm of stupidity when you text while driving.
Yes, I talk on my Blackberry and drive. But I don’t make a call unless it’s to my family who are on speed dial keys.
Waiting To Pay.
I hate waiting in lines...any lines. I especially hate waiting in line to pay for things. And for some reason the lines at Sam’s Club and Walmart piss me off the most. If a store chain wants my business, put enough people at the checkouts.
Add to this category waiting to get or pay the check at a restaurant. You would think that the one action a waiter or waitress would do right is the last action. I tip for service. The tip meter starts ticking down with the seconds after I ask for the check. I’m generally a good tipper, but I’m sure I’m on a list that pisses some waiters and waitresses off.
Co-Workers that assume you have nothing better to do.
There is always that person that comes out of nowhere, throws something on your desk, or lobs an email your way and ends the conversation with, “I need this tomorrow.” Now, if it’s not my boss, I usually respond by saying, “Good luck with that.”
Yes, I understand that there are always unexpected emergencies, but generally, some people think that everything they do is more important than whatever it is that you do.
There’s something you can add to this section. The self-important jerk that sends all their e-mail out with “HIGH PRIORITY.” I rank that with the old car window signs, “Baby On Board.”
Technology that doesn’t work.
I’m composing this blog from my new MacBook Pro. I’ve had it a long week and so far we have a love/hate relationship. On the love side, it’s fast (and I got the slowest, cheapest 15” model.) On the hate side, I don’t find it as intuitive as advertised. As an example, using Pages (Apple’s word processor) you would think you could use ‘save as’ to save a document in a certain folder in a certain format. NO. You just save as in Apple format in the Documents Folder. Now I have to export it to word format.
Oh, and before I forget, I miss MS Outlook. I’m sure Apple has it’s reasons, but having the Address Book, Calendar and email all in separate applications just means extra steps. I found out the MS Entourage is close to Outlook, but it’s still not the same.
But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’ll briefly describe an actual event that happened this Saturday morning. You see, I recently treated myself to a new car. Well, it’s not totally new. It’s a 2008 model that was a demonstrator with 5,000 miles on it. It’s an awesome vehicle with a lot of technology built in.
The Volvo C70 is a hardtop convertible. I’ve put some pictures below. The technology that went into this is amazing… Kind of like the Transformer movie.
So, 5:30 Saturday morning I meet my friends at a parking lot to drive to the golf course. Of course, I want to drive the guys in my new car, but I’m in a quandary; three guys and three sets of clubs won’t fit with the top down. So, I put the top up and throw three sets of clubs in the trunk and load everybody in. Car starts, drop it in reverse and a loud beep ensues. The computer flashes, “Warning! Top not locked! Stop safely and secure top!”
WTF! The top is all the way up. I waited for the confirmation tone and message “Top fully up.”
Throw it in park, turn off the ignition, push a few buttons, restart, put it in gear…no beep. Whew! Foot off the brake. Start rolling. BEEP BEEP BEEP. Crap! Same message.
Stop the car, get out, go to the back, try to open the trunk. NOTHING. Trunk is locked out. You see, there is no key to open the trunk. Since the lid has to open both ways, one way to store the top, the other to use it like a trunk, it’s all electrically controlled. No manual overrides.
So now the clubs are locked in the trunk. I can’t get them out. We can’t drive the car. It’s 5:45 Saturday morning, no dealer open to help and tee time in one hour. Oh, one friend laughing his ass off and the other pacing around trying to hold back his anger.
We spend 15 minutes futzing around with it before deciding to call it a morning and go home. I’m stuck in a new, broken car beeping incessantly at what seems to be rock concert decibels with warning lights flashing on my computer to stop. A half mile from my house I round a curve, rather aggressively, and the beeping stops. The next curve starts it again. The curb at the bottom of my driveway stops it again and I jump out and rush to the back of the car. The trunk lifts effortlessly. The clubs come out with the cell phone and I call my friends who are halfway home. Turns out one of the guys cancelled the tee time, but because the weather is spectacular, they decide to turn around and head back to the parking lot to get the clubs.
I try to get our tee time back, but the guy at the clubhouse already gave it away. Oh well, throw my buddies clubs in the back seat this time. “Fool me once.” I put my clubs in the garage and head back to the lot to give them their stuff back.
When I get back to the lot, one of the guys had called a different golf course and secured a tee time. WELL CRAP! Now my clubs are in the garage. So I race back home to get my clubs and meet them at the course. It was a gorgeous day and my technology issues are behind me.
So, what pisses you off?
Oh, this just in from my home state:
Car Dealer Offers Free AK-47 With Purchase Of New Truck.
Scroll to the bottom of the website.
8 comments:
I'm in a pretty good mood right now, but if that changes, I'll be back with a longer list. But right out of the gate I'd have to say: people who think their time is of greater value than mine. Will, you've named several specific examples of this, but I'll add the people who are chronically late.
Also, you must love the new car, otherwise I'd think you'd have taken a sledgehammer to it.
At least your car LOOKS really cool. That should count for something!
I'm also in a good mood this morning, so nothing in particular is pissing me off. But that will be sure to change before the day is over.
Okay ladies, how about hotels on the highway with paper thin walls? The kind where every truck rumbling down the highway wakes you up. It's 5 AM in Phoenix. Between the highway and the friggin' raging thunderstorms last night I got about 4 hours sleep.
OH, and having an overweight man in the middle seat on the plane that overhangs his allotted space. The guy next to me couldn't stay awake and kept bouncing his head on my shoulder.
By the way, something else that pisses me off? 114 degree heat and having to wear a suit and tie today.
May as well open the manuscript and get 1/2 hour writing in.
I have one word for you, Will: COFFEE.
GORGEOUS car, Will! If it looks like that, who cares if it's high maintenance, right?
My car - not as pretty as yours, but paid off - has some sort of electrical issue that keeps draining the battery. We've had two new batteries and recharged them twice since the middle of April. The car keeps visiting different repair shops, none of which can fix the problem. They all say they've hooked it up to diagnostics, there's nothing wrong with it, here you go... and a month later, another battery is down the drain, no pun intended. Horribly irritating. We had the CD changer removed last week, to see if that would make a difference.
As far as the rest of it goes, my pet peeve of the ones you mentioned is the first: the driver who is too special to wait in line with the rest of us and cuts in at the last minute. ESPECIALLY if they block the flow of traffic to do it. The rest are irritating as well, but that one's irritating as snot.
JB, have you tried replacing the alternator?
Oh, Wil, what a story. At least you got some writing mileage out of it.
I was recently in a long TSA line when on my way to a flight, and I was cutting it very close because of traffic. A well-dressed man tried to cut in front of me because he was late, and I didn't let him because, hey, so was I. But someone did allow him to cut, as I never saw him again in the ten further minutes it took to get to the place where they sorted us out to the various checkpoints. I'm still fuming about that.
One of my pet peeves is those who plan poorly and expect you to help them out, usually with great sacrifice on your part, as above. My father-in-law had a great sign in his office about this: "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on MY part."
Jennie
Love my car. Just won't put clubs in the trunk anymore. I think I know why it locked up, but I need to talk to the dealer.
Karen
When you mentioned TSA it reminded me of another thing that pisses me off. The people that wait until they're right up to the x-ray machines to start thinking about all the crap they have in their pockets, etc.
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