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

Dangerous information you've just given me.

It could just be the super-polite staff at my local one, but yeah I should test this...

Is "how are you?" a standard part of the supermarket cashier script in the US? Here in the UK I go to the same supermarket 5 times a week and get "how are you" maybe once every 3 months, so it's still uncommon enough to be thrown by it. I have no problem with thanking people or saying "you too" if I'm wished a good day or whatever, and if I actually recognise the cashier I'm happy to give a fuller answer, but I do find it a bit odd to be reeled off to a stranger as if on a script.

Anyhow, next time it happens (which, as I said, may not be for a few months) I'll try to make more of an effort to be polite.

And I probably shouldn't have used this thread, because although I tried to say that it only makes me irrationally momentarily confused and not irrationally angry, I guess I didn't spell out the off-topic-ness sufficiently. I looked for a supermarket thread but none of them seemed quite right, so I just came here.

s "how are you?" a standard part of the supermarket cashier script in the US? Here in the UK I go to the same supermarket 5 times a week and get "how are you" maybe once every 3 months, so it's still uncommon enough to be thrown by it.

I get it all the time in my local Sainsbury's, and as for Pret a Manger, I don't know what kind of cultish training they go through but it does seem as though they really want to be my best friend.

"How are you?" is normal in the U.S. Actually, it's probably closer to say it's the bare minimum in greetings at a store. I won't be surprised if one of these days I get a hug at Trader Joe's.

HINT: They also do not care if you HAVE A NICE DAY.

Perhaps not, but when they say, "Have a good one," it makes me want to punch them.

"How are you" is def synonymous with "Hello I acknowledge your existence but do not wish you to divulge any information about how you actually are" in the US in all contexts.

Sometimes I'll great coworkers with a "Hey howzit goin" and think to myself "Why are you asking that? You don't care!!!"

My favorite is when someone says "hello! Lovely weather, isn't it?" and the other person says, "Fine, thanks. You?" I imagine a mental drudge siren in the respondent's brain send out "WARNING WARNING OFF SCRIPT ABORT" error messages.

xp also LOL

i don't understand how people who get mad about people saying "how are you" as just a standard turn of phrase exist in this world without dropping dead from a coronary every day. i guess that's kind of the point of this thread.

Re TJ, it might actually a policy. It is definitely my habit to avoid "no" "can't" "we're out of ____" and most directly negative words at work (I'm a legal assistant now; most of my jobs prior to this one have been customer service related), and to offer an alternative. If done right, it doesn't sound affected, and it goes down easier than a plain denial. I really hate when I ask a store worker something like, "do you have this shirt in Large?" and they just say, "No, sorry." That is a door shutting in my face and it makes me not want to continue shopping.

Hi I wasn't mad! And I'm quite happy for it to be a standard turn of phrase at the office, and actually I'd probably rather hear an honest answer from the teenager in the shop who I'd never seen before than from some of my coworkers, especially the one who will complain for ten minutes about how tired she is and maybe she's getting the flu as soon as she gets in, every single day.

(And yes, someone will berate me for that next, so if she genuinely feels exhausted to the point of illness every day, then that does suck and I should feel sorry for her. If, on the other hand, she is exactly as tired as everyone else who had to get up for work, maybe she should just get a coffee and keep quiet until it kicks in.)

My ladyboss is overall averagely cheery, but every morning when she comes in and I say, "Hi, how are you?" She says, "Oh I'm here." It would be interesting to count how many times she's said that.

Back to things that make me IA: The firm's email domain name changed last week, and today my dudeboss emailed me "when I come in tomorrow, please change my laptop so it shows I am sending from the new email address. my emails from the iphone and the office computer come from the new address but not the laptop." He sent that email from his laptop (Outlook web access), and it said "From: [new address]" because how could it be otherwise.

It took a lot of emails before he told me that if he sends himself an email, it goes TO the former address, and then forwards to the new one. He had been relying on the auto-complete as his address book. He hadn't even been emailing himself at the *former* address, but the one prior to that, which we stopped using in late 2009.

two new ones...

friends iming me just as i'm about to log off and leave work.

and

oh jesus god this one

PEOPLE WHO FUCKING CYCLE ON THE FOOTPATH.

when a person sits next to me on the tube and then they are looking at me why are they looking at me? they have to turn their head almost 90 degrees to do this. i dont mind if a different person looks at me, i might be in their natural line of view thats ok but not the man sitting next to me stop looking you're making me agitated

lol

are their heads facing forward? some ppl have a thing abt facing forward

I started thinking about the 'not saying no' thing after this exchange at Whole Foods, on the new 'sandwich' counter which also has a 5-items sign and to which I've been directed several times by their employees. I'd asked if they had any basil (BAZZIL), they said 'we're out of... bayzil... right now' so I paid and left, then noticed outside a whole stack of herbs in pots including basil. Picked one up and went back in to pay at the small sandwich counter - where there were literally 7 staff behind it - because there are queues everywhere else.
Me: Can I pay for this here?
Them: Oh, you can take that upfront.
Me: (not sure if they'd heard as they were far away): Can I pay for this here?
Them: You can pay for that upfront.
I'm still not sure what they're saying, as this is technically the register nearest the front and I'm wondering if there's a language breakdown where I'm not understanding what 'upfront' means.
Me: so can I pay for this here, yes or no?
Them: er.... no

lol

are their heads facing forward? some ppl have a thing abt facing forward

― zvookster, Tuesday, September 27, 2011

everyone else seems to be ok with facing forwards but once every couple of weeks i get a person who wants to look at the side of my head at close range. i could understand looking at an angle across the carriage towards someone not directly ahead but these clowns have their heads at a 75 degree angle. ive had two of these deficients in the last two days, the one yesterday also had his arm outstretched and was leaning in..we looked like those couple with the hyper-possessive male keeping tabs on his precious little cherry blossom

it was so ridiculuous i turned my head to the 75 degree angle as well so we were almost but not quite looking into each others eyes. i thought he would think this was weird and change to a more acceptable position in response. he didnt...the people opposite seemed to enjoy it though

i look at people sometimes, i'm curious to see who i'm sitting beside.

another one...i fucking hate people who use facebook to air their political views, i mean like, non stop. even if i agree i just find it so pathetic and lame.

they are looking for the whole journey

sometimes i'm curious to see who i'm sitting beside for the whole journey

This seems like an appropriate place to share a story:

I was in the Bay Area on my honeymoon last week, and my wife and I were on BART to visit a friend in Oakland. The train is crowded, so I'm just standing up and casually looking around the car while my wife reads her Kindle. At one point I meet eyes for a second with a woman a few seats away. She is looking straight ahead at me, very intently, but I don't think anything of it, I just keep looking around.

As we approach the next stop, the woman walks up to me and says, "You're married, right?" While I'm momentarily dumbfounded at how she knows (I've been married a week, so I don't remember that I'm wearing a big old ring that broadcasts my marital status to anyone within sight of my left hand), she continues: "You need to focus on your wife. I saw you staring at me, looking at me up and down, undressing me with your eyes. Don't try to pretend you weren't." Astonished, I attempt to defend myself, saying I glanced at her for no more than a second or two while looking around the train. (Like, I'm sure I stared at the disheveled paraplegic by the door a whole lot longer than I ever looked at this woman.) She isn't having any of it. She keeps repeating, loudly, that I need to focus on my wife. So I persist as well, claiming innocence and noting her sheer presumptuousness.

Of course, this riles up other riders on the train, some of whom say "Dude, just let it go!" And I don't know whether this means "It's no use arguing with a crazy woman" or "It's no use trying to defend yourself, when you've been so devastatingly called out." So now I'm horrified at the thought that the entire train thinks I'm this disgusting lecher who's ogling other women on my honeymoon, while my wife is standing right next to me (not that anyone would know that I was on my honeymoon -- or for that matter, that the woman next to me is my wife). And my wife is trying to get me to back off, too, at one point forcefully kissing me just to shut me up. Eventually the train arrives at the station, and the woman walks out, all the while claiming that her boyfriend is going to whip my ass or some such thing. I was still pretty much shaken until I got off the train myself.

So you know: Be careful where you're lookin', fellas.

I've had at least 3 dozen women tell me this about you jaymc.

Give me that woman's contact info. I am in a unique position to set her straight.

Just a second ... I need to pull it up on my BlackBerry.

If it's any consolation, everyone I know who moves here has tales to tell about crazy BART people within a week or two...

I think my response to such a woman would have been a very loud "would you mind your own business, you egostistical COW?"

"Weren't you in here a few hours ago?" he asks.
"Nope, wasn't me." I reply.

He scans a few more items and then says, "Well, he looked exactly like you."
"Must've been a handsome dude!" I say.

He completely stops everything and looks at me. "I wouldn't know anything about that." Then all of a sudden, the lightbulb comes on. "… but, I see where you would think that!"

I hate talking to this cashier, I think to myself.

― Pleasant Plains, Tuesday, September 27, 2011 11:42 AM (8 hours ago)

I don't get it. Was he so strung out about possibly referring to another man as handsome? I try to joke with the cashiers at Whole Foods sometimes and it is almost always an unqualified failure because they're SO FUCKING STUPID

Yes, he was that strung out.

Having to change the date in the search results on ALL our websites to the US format. We are a UK company, but trying to make it big over there so what they say goes.

tip for jaymc: just say to the luny, "oh we're swingers, we teamed up because i can always pick ladies she'll enjoy -- you interested? she's hott"

My ladyboss is overall averagely cheery, but every morning when she comes in and I say, "Hi, how are you?" She says, "Oh I'm here." It would be interesting to count how many times she's said that.

Next time, ask "Where are you?"...

"Why are you?"

*implodes*

PEOPLE WHO PUT ON THEIR FLASHERS AND PARK IN THE FUCKING BIKE LANE TO DROP KIDS OFF AT DAYCARE (NB not actually "innocuous.")

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/298134_2335530384409_1134308060_2772273_511814645_n.jpg

the other day a pizza guy was parked in the middle of the bike lane (most of which is actually set off from the rest of the street by dividers — he was in the one place where it wasn't smdh)

Who drops off their kids at daycare in the middle of the night?

Vampyres

LOL I took that pic about 6:30 this morning. As I was taking it, the driver walked out of the building and said, "Sorry." As if. I didn't reply, so she said, "Are you taking a picture of my license plate?" I replied, "Yes, I am," and biked off.

The stupid thing is, unseen in the picture, but about two feet behind me, THERE IS A PARKING CUTOUT THAT WILL HOLD UP TO FOUR CARS, as seen here: http://g.co/maps/k3xyz . As I was taking this, a car pulled behind me into the cutout . . . then saw I was blocking the area where she wanted to park illegally, so pulled around the corner.

And my wife is trying to get me to back off, too, at one point forcefully kissing me just to shut me up.

This is amazing.

jaymc i'm a mean starer. i dunno. yo next time just start riffing on her how you were fantasizing about turning her around and licking out her ass while kneeling behind her and kiss the single dark mole over her left breast like a medallion of a saint. then put your hand around the small of her back, pull her in and kiss her throat. your girl should get in on it too

*aroused*

the late-night dripping of the upstairs neighbors' bedroom a/c onto ours. i've put towels down on top of our unit and they get soaked through. i don't want to interfere with anyone's thermal comfort (although in the middle of the night in late september they could just open a freaking window) but the dripping is keeping me awake and i'm running out of shitty $3.99 bath towels.

also, we're having a drain fly problem and don't wanna encourage standing water.

Kings Cross Station - all of it, the whole lot.

xp you're saying the splattering noise is the problem? a sponge (or piece of cushion foam) might work for that..

the splattering and the standing water from the soaked towels (or sponges or foam, possibly).

i had a similar problem a few years ago (overflow pipe) and a slanted piece of wood helped a lot - the sound of a glancing blow wasn't audible from inside the way a drip onto a flat surface was.

Can you just take your AC out for the season?

Kings Cross Station - all of it, the whole lot.

― Yo wait a minute man, you better think about the world (dog latin), Thursday, September 29, 2011 7:03 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Awwwwwww I used to live 5 mins from there and used it every day. It's p crap but I'd give a lot to be able to be there right now.

This was years ago now but there was a lot of construction going on around there then. I wonder if it's done now.

OK, Very unimportant thing that can make me IA..

When in a film or TV show, someone plays a record with a visible label and the song that plays definitely was not issued on that label. It happens less often these days but there's a definite one at the beginning of "One Day".

There's an ad that has Elton John playing but the label is yellow. Then again, it could be a "Uni" label which issued it in the USA...

http://shop.totallyvinyl.com/img/uploads/images/Wyman/ELTON_JOHN_GOODBYE_YELLOW_BRICK_ROAD_DJ_7_2.jpg
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRlHA9R3jd51K4bf78HsSoDy-9w3JlBLXZgGCJvdL_6rfAy0lwFWs96qJSFPQ
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqr8Lo4w5ywYNPKeCaxu62txftyL9_Wo3ihJ8rkHnXDssRbu9o9NfRI3lw