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

grrrr when you're in Excel and you double-click and it takes you to the bottom of your 1500-row-long spreadsheet grrrrrrrr

when you're in excel and you accidentally erase the formula in your cell and have to c/p it from somewhere else.

There may be a good reason for it, but it bugs me when I'm in Excel and I try Ctrl+Shift+arrow key to select text by the word and it doesn't work like it does in most every other program. The thing is, that combo has no other function, so why can't it be used for selecting a word at a time??

Yeah, there are a few things in Excel where you wonder "why the hell doesn't this just work the same as in Word?"

I work with a database called Raiser's Edge. There's a Query function, which you use to ask questions of the database using a variety of criteria. And then there's a function called Export, which uses the data from your query to create an excel spreadsheet. However, Export does not have the same potential outputs as Query does. There are some outputs that Query has that Export doesn't have and vice-versa.

The database DOES allow me to export the results of the Query directly in the Query function, which is how I've been doing things ever since I started using it. However, last week someone asked me for a report with a an output that was available only in Export.

I ended up running exports from both the Query and the Export, then copying and pasting the data from one spreadsheet to the other, but I had doublecheck to make sure that they had both pulled on the same records.

I feel like I should just send this in an email to the company, but I'm angry about it (irrationally so, because I now know the solution) so it's going here.

I read the whole post carefully....

"The" dude. "That" dude. Not just "dude." It's one extra motherfucking word, and it will singlehandedly save you from sounding like a fucking drooling imbecile. You are a professional writer! Stop writing in a way that makes you seem stupider, just because you've heard rappers talk this way! Not only should writers who do this never get another assignment, the editors who let it pass should be fired, too.

It's called a colloquialism, dude.

It is absolutely absurd that Outlook does have multiple reminders or at least allow you to copy a whole event, both of which Google does. At work we do 1,2, and 3 week reminders and then daily ones for crucial deadlines, and it's a pain in the ass for a function that surely lots of people want!

Switch your office to Google Apps.

I work with a database called Raiser's Edge.

This makes me IA.

it's for fundraisers.

I don't understand the problem with the Raiser's Edge issue. Wouldn't the solution be to do the export and then manipulate the data from there (ie putting in whatever summarization you needed, maybe prettying up the presentation, etc)?

Haha, OK. Fair enough. I used to play bass in a classic rock covers band called Razor's Edge. It ended when I killed everyone else in the band in a spree shooting. (Not really, but boy do I wish.)

Here's a thing that drives me into a frothing rage, and which I am encountering more and more lately. A quote from today's review of the new DJ Shadow disc, on Pitchfork:

"After all, dude's on Verve, a label that certainly allows an artist the freedom to not give a shit about what the kids are into."

"The" dude. "That" dude. Not just "dude." It's one extra motherfucking word, and it will singlehandedly save you from sounding like a fucking drooling imbecile. You are a professional writer! Stop writing in a way that makes you seem stupider, just because you've heard rappers talk this way! Not only should writers who do this never get another assignment, the editors who let it pass should be fired, too.

― that's not funny. (unperson), Thursday, 6 October 2011 15:16 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalin

Yeah, this is irrational. If you're going to use slang terms like "dude" then I don't think there's anything wrong with appropriating it in the same way as some people might say it. There's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek going on here anyway; the writer's aware of the stylistic twist.

Dan, that's what I ended up doing, but it took me a while of fuming and trying other methods before I came up with that solution.

Did you play AC/DC, Phil?

Amazingly, no.

We played jammy instrumentals under Somerset Maugham readings.

When roommates leave passive-aggressive notes addressed to everyone in the apartment (all three of us) like we live in a fucking office building.

Jenny.

What?

- when you try on a pair of shoes that are slightly too big, and they don't have the next size down in stock, and the shop assistant ALWAYS ALWAYS says "yeah but you can just wear in-soles"

I HATE IN-SOLES

People on messageboards about TV shows that say shit like "just ignore the plotholes and stop nitpicking, it's still a really good show, just enjoy it for what it is" - FFS, A REALLY GOOD SHOW WOULDN'T HAVE MASSIVE FUCKING PLOTHOLES IN IT (also, um, you're on a messageboard about the show, where the fuck else are people meant to dissect the plot?)

You should try our Doctor Who threads some time...

The phrase/joek: "'I see,' said the blind man."

Perhaps you prefer the extended dance remix of that phrase my father always used: '"I see,' said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw."

And that ain't awl.

My family heritage is in the " 'I see,' said the blind man to his deaf wife, who wasn't really listening anyway" camp.

"I see, said the blind man who could not speak."

"'Icy', said the blind man when asked what the weather was like."

Thank you, everybody.

Another variation I heard once: "'I see,' said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw, see-saw."

motherfucker.

Blame this poem, which has been around in some form or another since the 19th century:

One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise
and ran to save the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this lie is true,
ask the blind man, he saw it, too.

My brother's (very horrible) mother-in-law says "I see said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw," all the time. My brother discovered that it vexed her when he changed it to "I see said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and chainsaw," so that has been how part of my family says it for a while.

Oh man, my uncle used to always make it even more terrible by adding a whole section. "I see said the blind man as he pissed into the wind, 'it's all coming back to me now'".

You know, I live in the only state mentioned in the Bible:

"By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry." (Genesis 8:13)

I get so annoyed with people who can't communicate on the phone for various reasons. Current IA is due to a caller who was talking at the level of a whisper. Sometimes I could barely tell she was talking at all, never mind understanding what she was saying. I asked her to speak up and she would say, "Oh, sorry," then be perfectly understandable for a few words, then go back to being inaudible.

Sometimes potential plaintiffs call from their workplaces and they have to be quiet so they don't get caught, so I said that if that was her situation and she needed to call back, she could, but she said she was at home.

Part of my job is to screen potential clients. This caller said she was a medical professional who was the victim of employment discrimination, which culminated in her being fired. When I tried to find out what kind of discrimination, she said, "I told you, it's employment discrimination."

"I understand, but on what basis were you discriminated against?"

"On what basis?? I just told you: they passed me over for promotions, then they fired me!"

"Ma'am, some examples of types of discrimination are race, sex, pregnancy.... do any of those apply?"

Now, I AM NOT MAKING THIS PART UP: "Yes, exactly, race - like I told you, I was in the race for a promotion and they didn't promote me."

I told her that I meant "race" as in ethnicity or national origin, and she said, "Oh. Well, I guess it could've been because of my race.... Also, they retaliated against me because of my race."

It will be interesting to hear what she tells a lawyer. I'm guessing that she is pissed because she got fired and she thinks that some law requires good cause for firing someone, or she thinks that it is illegal for an employer to treat a worker like shit.

I make long posts.

First part reminded me of this at :45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On73aHpgdSQ

And when I asked for the name of the employer, she gave me a one-word name that could have meant anything. It would be like saying, "I work at Acme."

Email communication is my IA today.
In particular with smartphone ppl.

I am emailed about a problem. The problem appears to originate with the emailer. I send them specific information to reconfirm, to make sure we are talking about the same thing. They confirm, but I still have a feeling they're not *reading* my info. Four emails later, and calls to other departments reveals they are the source of the screwup. At which point they say oh that thing I confirmed? yeah that's totally wrong.

At which point I load my shotgun.

"Yes, exactly, race - like I told you, I was in the race for a promotion and they didn't promote me."

just want to highlight this for anyone that missed it

I have a bus driver nemesis. She makes me irrationally angry. She drives the bus that goes directly past my house on weekdays before rush hour, so when I have weekdays off, I am often on her bus. How do I know it's the same bus driver?

Well, before she opens the door all the way she snaps, "STEP UP! STEP IN! STEP UP!" After I step up, step in and am in the process of touching my farecard to the reader and she snaps, "STEP ALL THE WAY IN." Then, as she is pulling away from every stop she says, "Standing passengers. Please hold on. Please use your passenger signals." She has a terrible, nasally voice. Whenever she says "Please use your passenger signals" there is a murmur of confusion among bus passengers as they try to figure out what the shit a passenger signal is. It's the cord you pull to signal your stop, btw. I know this because I have ridden her bus enough to have heard multiple people ask her for clarification.

I use my passenger signal in advance of my stop and EVERY TIME she blows past my stop. EVERY. TIME. She ends up letting me off in the middle of the intersection or in the next block. So today I used my passenger signal and then I said, nice and clearly, "I have used my passenger signal for Mystop Street. Please stop the bus." She did and I said, "Attagirl," because I"m an asshole and she is my nemesis.

I sympathize. WTF @ "use your passenger signals":

1. "Passenger signal"???????
2. How obnoxious to hassle people to do something that they would do anyway. It's not even like "Please move to the rear of the bus," which people forget to do, pulling the cord is something that everyone except a confused tourist or mentally disabled person will always do b/c they want to stop.
3. "Passenger signal" sounds like public transit work jargon, so I'm now thinking that she is using it the way police use stilted, formal language like "ascertain" instead of "find out" (can't think of better examples right now) as a show of authority.

I've seen bus drivers blow by stops even when passengers used their passenger signals, and then continue to the next stop because they insisted that the passenger did not pull the cord.

Per number 2, she starts hollering STEP UP STEP IN STEP UP before the door is open, so again, hassling people to do something that they are going to do anyway, ie GET ON THE DAMN BUS. Today she hassled people about stepping up and in as, meanwhile, a couple of shithead tourists blocked the front of the bus with their bodies and their luggage without any comment. I also get irritated at the repetitiveness of it. She always says the same thing. It's like a tic. I hate her.

Now, I AM NOT MAKING THIS PART UP: "Yes, exactly, race - like I told you, I was in the race for a promotion and they didn't promote me."

This is the best thing I read in ages.

Update on the caller from before: I'm relieved to report that it was HER, NOT ME. Just talked to my boss (who was the lawyer who did the phone consultation) who said there were problems determining what kind of discrimination was happening. First, the woman told her that she had no idea because she didn't have EE0C charge form with her - the form on which she would have had to have checked race, color, sex, religion, age, etc. - but she could look at the form and call back.

Then she said that it was "criminal discrimination." My boss asked if she meant that she was discriminated against based on her criminal record. No, what she meant was that since she had filed a charge that the discrimination must be criminal.

Also, she was NOT fired. She conflated "fired" with "not given the job she wanted."

She might be a little crazy, but it seems more like she is just really damn dumb. But somehow she got a job as a para-professional in a hospital, so I don't know what's going on.

So she still works there, just didnt get a promotion? Hahahha! Thats even more priceless.

ia: an e-mail from a recruiter telling me about a job in "los angeles county," with no further info about the location. l.a. county is 4,752.32 square miles.*

*i may have c/p'ed this from wikipedia

Job site accessible by car and other means.

The fact that a lot of makes of DVRs are not capable of allowing for last-minute scheduling changes. No FOX, I did not want to watch 53 minutes of that stupid dinosaur show instead of House tonight. Assholes. #firstworldproblems

I have so many DVR IA's...fucking Surewest DVR box is a piece of garbage. You can tell it what show to record, you can tell it how often to record, but you can't tell it what TIME to record and you can't prioritze recordings so it basically records whatever the fuck it wants. and it might record 2 of the same show on the same day and not record the other show that's on at 3 am that you want.

#firstworldproblems