Yippee-IA, Motherf***ers! IRRATIONALLY ANGRY PT. 2: Irrationally Angrier

my 90 yr old grandpa writes better emails than that

and he writes to me once a year on my birthday!

Aimless, it wasn't that "wassup?" thing of a few years so?

No, I remember this, there was a "how you doin?" commercial as well.

neither of those things are what i am talking about though
(not that it matters)

Some time in the late 90s there was an annoying beer ad that featured lots of presumably italian-american young men repeatedly saying, "hayooDOO-in?" as a greeting to one another in a bar, as they assembled to drink the cowpiss beer being advertised. Not long afterward I noticed that more and more people started greeting me with "how's it goin'?" or "how you doin'?" instead of "hi", until by c. 2005 this sort of greeting seems to have infected over 80% of the people who make an effort to greet me. I expect it to remain firmly entrenched for at least another dozen years.

― Aimless, Thursday, August 29, 2013 3:49 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is because of "friends," not a beer commercial

IA at ppl who write overly conversational waaaaaay too long instructions
It's cool when explanations are needed but don't be chatty and don't lump a whole bunch of steps into one paragraph.

I'm learning a whole bunch of new tasks that were written up by my predecessor and no shit it's written like some kind of Martha Stewart special. "So now that we're done with that we then take the ...'

And this is just, like Excel stuff. boom boom boom step BY step do you not understand how LITTLE I want to read your flowery too-long explanations JUST GIVE ME THE STEPS FFS

It's like Yelp went into the instruction manual business.

it's "hi la lechera, how are you" (particularly in writing, not so much irl) because i expect more from most people who would write to me than "hi how are you" i expect something a little less robotic/2nd grade letter writing tips -- not a genuine interest in my life because i don't really want to talk about that, just "sup -- here's my q"

better

QUERY:

u ppl sure are cranky about how you're greeted huh

Today I am. Not usually.

its ok it is the irrational anger thread tbf

I learned in my workplace personality type class that some people require small talk or feel communication is rude without it, so perhaps this person is one of those or is hedging in case you are

my workplace personality type class

wut

i'm an autumn

my workplace personality type class

^^ IA

hi how are you = feeble small talk (a)
i am not that kind of person (b)
this person should really know that by know since we have known each other for 15 years (c)

that is my already faded gripe in a nutshell

by NOW not by know
ugh
sorry

I hate that too, and even worse is 'I hope you are well?' The question mark is super-enraging.

People who phone my mobile when I'm at work, number withheld, and do not let it ring for long enough to get from my desk to somewhere where I can actually take a call

now I get to spend the rest of the day wondering if I missed something urgent when it was probably just someone trying to sell me a conservatory (would look nice on my 2nd-floor flat, I agree)

if someone calls you on your mobile phone from a number you don't know and do not leave a voicemail it means it was completely unimportant

I would agree except 1. I don't have voicemail set up and 2. the last withheld number I managed to answer in office hours was a health service I'm supposed to have an appointment with on Friday, so I suspect the missed call may be them either reminding or rearranging - the latter would be nice to know about.

on the other hand, it probably was just a sales cold-call. (yeah, I'll ring to confirm my appointment the day before, I just don't want to annoy my boss by arranging and rearranging time off)

95% of the calls I receive on my phone come up as Unknown.

maybe you should set up your voicemail, just a suggestion

so basically you're just angry that people don't just let the phone ring 30 times when no one picks up and it doesn't go to voicemail

xp I suppose that would be the logical course of action and the real problem is that voicemail makes me IA.

30 times would be great because then I could stand somewhere other than an echoey bathroom but more than 4 times or to have some visible way of calling them back 0.2 seconds after they rang off to ask what they wanted would have been nice.

I've never had a sales cold-call leave voicemail! Voicemail is pretty much the go-to place for people who absolutely need to contact me

Also, I get IA when people call back a number they don't recognize. I guess in absence of voicemail it's something to do? If someone's called my number and I don't know who they are, I have zero interest in doing anything other than deleting them from my call log.

At least once a week, I hear over the office intercom, "Who ever paged John David Pringleberry, he's on Line 1."

... and everyone just looks at each other like Who the fuck is John David Pringleberry?

Answer: a guy who will return any page you send to him.

amazing

(Different names each week, not just that one I made up.)

Eh I hardly ever call back if I don't know the number, but might do so occasionally if I've only just missed the call and it's a local number (so less likely to be marketing or a call centre)

Do most people use their mobile phone voicemail? Don't recall ever going through to voicemail on a friend's personal mobile number, most people I know send a text if they can't get hold of me and presumably would just expect one the other way round. Dunno if this is a UK thing or an age thing or just my group of friends.

I don't think young people use voicemail? Friends going straight to a text instead of leaving a message is another tip-off for me -- friends will text, actual legitimate calls will leave voicemail, third parties that are neither will leave neither ime

I use mobile phone voicemail. I mean, I doubt the bank or the doctor's office or a professional colleague would hang up and then send me a text if they couldn't get in touch with me after dialing my number.

It actually strikes me as kind of rude to expect someone to take an extra step to try and get in touch with you if they were already calling? But my mobile is my primary contact number so it's not like I only give it to friends.

it's my only number, yeah

Do most people use their mobile phone voicemail? Don't recall ever going through to voicemail on a friend's personal mobile number, most people I know send a text if they can't get hold of me and presumably would just expect one the other way round.

People still do call from land lines, e.g., doctors or co-workers, like carl said. Not having a voice mail box at all seems strange to me.

Most of my voicemail messages, to friends and family at least, go along the lines of "Hey, it's pp. Gonna just text you instead."

In the UK there is an extra charge to ring your own voicemail so nobody really uses it (on the other hand, our minutes don't get eaten by incoming calls over which we have no control). If I can't reach someone by calling, they get a text and no voicemail.

^ I knew there was a good reason why I didn't use it apart from just hating it!

However, yeah, I am kind of conflating friends and the kind of grey area of non-work non-friend phone calls, which I don't get many of and clearly need a better way of dealing with.

Oh, I didn't think about minutes. Last time I checked I had 4200 minutes left and I kind of assume unlimited or roll-over minutes are the norm, which I guess they're not.

Ahhhh I never thought of minutes/charges, either. Jeff and I have a shared plan with the lowest number of minutes possible and we still don't come anywhere near using them, voicemail or no.

Our plans tend to be 500-1000 outgoing minutes a month, with unlimited texts and a reasonable amount of interweb.

thankfully for carl and Jeff, conversing on ilx takes no cell phone minutes

It doesn't use up minutes for us to talk to each other.

i use voicemail if i want to tell someone something funny/impt (that doesn't require follow up) and don't want to waste the time thumb-typing the whole damn thing

plus your theatrical performance probably adds to it

i try to only leave quality voicemails

So I was dimly aware that this was a thing, but I kept brushing it off like, Nah, something else has to be happening here.

But no, it's true: They're making cars now which turn on the reverse lights when you simply stick a key in the ignition?

This... this... what is the point? Why would you want that to happen? Why would you design a car to do that?

It's incredibly selfish and - I wasn't sure this was possible - adds an even more world-revolves-around-me feature to behemoth SUVs. So someone hops into their Yukon 9000 in the parking garage, sticks their key to turn on the AC, fiddle with the satellite radio for five minutes and proceeds to fake out every car coming up behind them?

So now if I'm a car jacker, I wait until I see the reverse lights come on instead of hopping into a vehicle where I don't know where the key is?

Is this really happening?

Apparently it is and can lead to some hilarious confrontations.

And yet they still can't make a car that automatically switches on the headlights if your windshield wipers are on for more than 10 seconds.