Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

Oh god yes, taking the subways means your possible arrival times can only happen in certain increments, depending on how far apart trains are running. Like, you can be 15 mins early, right on time, or 15 mins late...and if you happen to miss the train in the middle there, you will be the "15 mins late." Multiply that by having to connect from one train to another, and the possible arrivals get even further apart.

but it's infinitely more polite to aim for 15 mins early than chance being 15 mins late.

My wife is really bad at understanding that sometimes. She'll ask me what time she should pick me up at the train station and often gets frustrated that I can't give her an exact time. It's like, yes, I would love to say I will be there at precisely 6:04, but there are too many variables to even narrow it down to a 10 minute window most days.

Of course it is, ledge, but you don't know when the train is coming in the first place, so you leave your house, then you walk to the station, maybe that's 10 minutes, you don't know how rushed to be, you might JUST miss a train you could have caught, who knows. Too many variables. Next thing you know, you're on a G platform at 11.30pm, trying to text the person you're meeting. :/

My original point is in contrast to, say, walking or driving somewhere, where you have an infinite number of times you could arrive. If I'm making any sense.

i understand, and sympathise. but if your appointment was to catch an actual scheduled unmissable train, you'd make damn sure you arrived on time. why treat your friends differently? even if it means potentially being early by half an hour, isn't that better than making your friend wait around for half an hour?

maybe i'm spoiled as the tube is frequent enough to not make this a major issue, but for my whole damn life i've been the person who arrives on time, and then has to wait around on their own for everyone else who can't be fucked to make the effort.

Oh I totally agree with you ledge and I'm usually one of those people that ends up leaving 30 minutes before I need to just to make sure I'm not late. But one of the big problems with Chicago's CTA system is that it is notoriously impossible to follow the schedule. The line I take to and from work is supposed to come every 5-6 minutes during morning and evening rush hours, but it isn't uncommon to either see two or three trains coming in one after the other or have to wait 10-12 minutes for one to come. Then, because of those ones that get bunched up, you'll end up sitting between stops for 5 or 6 minutes. So the same trip I take every day varies from about 35-55 minutes, depending on how smoothly things happen to be running. Its really annoying.

the trick is to not say 'meet at 10:30' but 'meet between 10:20 and 10:40'. and then choose somewhere where waiting 20 minutes isn't an issue (ie bookshop and not somewhere cold / full of hobos)

and if someone's visiting and staying in, say, south ken don't agree to meet him in E1.

I am a late person, mostly cos I cram too much into my time. But I also tend to meet people at bars or similar so it's not a hardship for them to be there.

What made me irrationally angry this weekend: People.

yeah i can get behind that.

A woman at the museum where I performed all weekend was trying to rush to the arriving ferry boat, instead she tripped and hit her head on a cement walkway and was quite badly injured. It turned out that the reason she was rushing her group along was because some of the kids on the tour had to get back home for MASS.

So 150 people on the trip were put at risk for falls & injuries so that a handful could go home in time for some rote religious observance.

Meanwhile, as she's being picked up and examined by bystanders and my friend hops off to get Security and an ice pack, some kid from their tour is standing 40 feet away yelling at them to HURRY UP and get on the boat. Fucking savages.

A couple from Long Island who arrived around 4pm, as the island was closing, who were upset that they missed all the performing groups WHO HAD BEEN THERE SINCE 10AM, PERFORMING.

We invited them to see us next weekend but they said it was too far to drive, and the wife proclaimed, importantly, "I don't TAKE public transportation."

Re people getting hurt, it might seem like I'm being IA but actually a person fell down some cement steps on Saturday, too, and had to have medics come from off-island and load them onto a body board and take them away. So the rushing-to-mass lady was actually the SECOND victim we'd seen of people running to the ferries.

that's awful. I can see why you'd be IA, that would mske me crazy

So 150 people on the trip were put at risk for falls & injuries so that a handful could go home in time for some rote religious observance.

I never understood this line of thinking. Surely you know that to some people, this stuff is actually important?

Then they should have stayed home. If it were actually important.

Home from the day-time event, that is. Would have given them plenty of time to get to mass.

I never understood this line of thinking. Surely you know that to some people, this stuff is actually important?

Sorry dude, I just can't see any event ever that is more than the safety and well-being of two, let alone 150, people. If your religion is THAT important to you, fine, fair enough, but then make sure to plan your life accordingly.

insert "important" between the "more" and "than" in the first sentence

So am I to understand that they were literally barreling through people and cracking heads open to catch the ferry

Then they should have stayed home. If it were actually important.

Yes and using that logic everyone should be on time for their flights and nobody should want to do more than one thing per day.

Everyone SHOULD be on time for their flights.

And, no, not saying people shouldn't schedule only 1 event per day, but if one of those events happens to be of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE to you, then maybe make sure its your priority - not tacked on around other scheduled events.

My IA is compounded by the number of people who go to Ellis Island just to check it off on their "places we took a picture" list. Every year, I see a ton of people arrive on one boat and return to port on the next one -- only about 30 mins later. There's a whole museum to see and IT'S FREE, FOR GOD'S SAKE. But they just rush there, eat some greasy food at the snack bar, and get back in the ferry line. Makes me hate just absolutely everyone.

We should send them back to wherever they came from. I mean, that's the place to do it from.

Ohio?

lol

Pennsylvania drivers clogging the left lanes on the highways here in New Jersey. Do you even have to pass a driving test to get a license in Pennsy?

Get the fuck out of the left lane.

Everyone SHOULD be on time for their flights.

And, no, not saying people shouldn't schedule only 1 event per day, but if one of those events happens to be of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE to you, then maybe make sure its your priority - not tacked on around other scheduled events.

I get that, but people rush to make events that aren't even that important and hurt themselves all the time too

Posting to ilx while you drive might be just as dangerous Bill.

I get that, but people rush to make events that aren't even that important and hurt themselves all the time too

Right, and those people make me IA just as much, I wasn't trying to single out religious events.

I'm singling out the religious event, and I can if I want, because this is the IA thread.

People should be on time for their flights. Particularly if they own a magazine, miss their business class flights, and have to buy two more top-price tickets at the airport so as to catch the next one - and act like it's no big thing because of course they're entitled to do this, and charge both sets of tickets to the company even though they're off to visit their grand/kids. Meanwhile, contributors and employees of the magazine feel lucky if their economy flights/train fares get covered by expenses at all, and are frequently told $100 worth of bargain travel is unaffordable in the budget.

People on a train who have flung all kinds of belongings on the seat next to them as if nobody else is going to occupy the seat, then looking annoyed with you because you have the audacity to sit next to them (even though your seat is assigned prior to getting on)

Also to clarify my 'get places on time' from last night, my situation is recurring theatre rehearsals scheduled at the same time every day, in FL which means you have to drive.

Like I had to drive 45 mins to rehearsals cuz I lived 36 miles away 3 years ago, and I was never late. Can see it happening once or twice, but not all the time.

It's called these people know it takes them 50 minutes to get there and leave 45 minutes prior.

people who say 'biffy'

ugh

what the hell does that mean?

as a verbalization of "bff" as in "best friend forever" they will say "me and my biffy went out last night" and then i will want to throw them off a cliff

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_S-Zs12CdjLA/TD6McLl-nQI/AAAAAAAAAmM/qRG3gr8wq70/s1600/biff+tannen.jpg

U mean a cliffy.

lol <3

I don't know any of those people but I already hate them.

BIFFY

guh

ewww yeah no to biffy

BIFFY is a synonym for 'ladies' room' used by fussy old Midwestern ladies, so imagine it in a slightly hushed and embarrassed Minnesota accent to appreciate the full horror.

x-post lol

Oh by the way the internet also told me that it's slang for toilet in parts of the midwest and Canada!

I would fully support physical violence in this case, Hoos. I mean...wow

My IA is compounded by the number of people who go to Ellis Island just to check it off on their "places we took a picture" list. Every year, I see a ton of people arrive on one boat and return to port on the next one -- only about 30 mins later.

(The racial aspect to this may be unwarranted/inflammatory/untrue but) my parents were amused when they went on some hotel-organised day tour in Rome and they ended up with a coachload of Japanese tourists and apparently at every stop they all rushed off the bus, took iphone photos of each other gurning and waving in front of whatever sight or monument without even looking at it, and rushed back on the coach.

Meanwhile my folks were probably making 40 Japanese people IA as the coach waited for them to wander slowly around all the sights reading the blurb and look in every nook and cranny of museums.

when people are late on a recurring basis and the excuse is "you know how far away I live"

Well yeah, I do totally see yr point, but I reserve the right to think that the coworker who lives 1.5 miles away and drives in and is always 40 minutes late is a bigger jerk than the one who buses in from 20 miles away and is always 40 minutes late.

Though I'm totally slack about transport now I live somewhere where the buses are every 5-10 minutes. I used to live somewhere where the buses were hourly and was damn sure to be at the stop on time, often turning up (early) for the one an hour before I needed just in case. Now I routinely traipse out of the house 15 minutes after I meant to.

on the tourist IA thing, I have real IA streak against people who go to something like the Jefferson Memorial and get their photo taken in front of his statue. I don't know why, but it drives me CRAZY. Like, isn't a photo of it enough to show that you were there? Why does your grinning yap have to be in front of it?