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Minor things that make you like people less

Started by Utter Shit, June 09, 2007, 06:12:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Over-politeness at bus stops:

"After you".  "No, you were here first mate, after you".  "No, after you", etc.  One of you just get on, for God's sake!  If I were the driver I'd just set off, leaving them there. 

purlieu

Quote from: buttgammon on June 09, 2007, 09:55:34 PM
The bastards!

"Ooo, so you put your card in like so, then press the buttons for your PIN number and press that green button."

Stop patronising me you debit card enabling scum!
I always say "if you'd like to put your card in..." and "enter your PIN now please" because the amount of people who put their card in halfway through my scanning items or stand there staring into space waiting to be told to enter their PIN is incredibly high.  The cunts.

I'll add to this list ANYONE who says "the customer is always right".  No, they aren't.  The customer is never right.  Ever.  They just think they are.

Pseudopath

Quote from: purlieu on June 10, 2007, 03:23:39 PM
  I always say "if you'd like to put your card in..." and "enter your PIN now please" because the amount of people who put their card in halfway through my scanning items or stand there staring into space waiting to be told to enter their PIN is incredibly high.  The cunts.

I'll add to this list ANYONE who says "the customer is always right".  No, they aren't.  The customer is never right.  Ever.  They just think they are.

How about checkout staff who tell you to enter your PIN a couple of seconds before the terminal is actually ready (because their screen is obviously not perfectly synchronised to the chip-and-PIN display) and look at you funny while you wait for the machine to catch up?

23 Daves

Quote from: purlieu on June 10, 2007, 03:23:39 PM
  I always say "if you'd like to put your card in..." and "enter your PIN now please" because the amount of people who put their card in halfway through my scanning items or stand there staring into space waiting to be told to enter their PIN is incredibly high.  The cunts.

You'd think after a couple of years of them being introduced I'd have got used to the whole concept, but I am monumentally rubbish at using the chip and pin machines, and often find myself apologising because I know it must be exasperating to the people working on the till. Only yesterday, in fact, I said (after putting the card in the wrong way round): "I'm really sorry, I must have been the hundredth person to do that today, and I'm sure it must piss you off".  The cashier laughed, and didn't really disagree with me.

Back to the subject of not saying goodbye on the phone that rudi carried on, I was actually referring more to office phones.  If someone asks you to do something, then hangs up without even saying "Goodbye" (or even sometimes "Thank you") then I form a very ill opinion of them very swiftly.  And I might even shunt their task to the bottom of my "to do" list.  The same when I worked in a call centre - if you just hang up before the conversation has terminated properly, I guarantee you you're aggravating a call centre worker somewhere who might be thinking about quitting anyway, and therefore might not feel too strongly against forgetting to sort out whatever they were supposed to do with your bank account/ insurance, etc.  It annoyed every single one of us without exception, so I know my view isn't exactly unique.  It comes across very badly.

Oh, and if you phone up a bank wanting something explained to you urgently, don't bark "OK, shoot!" down the phone when the person says they're ready to give you the information.  That really is the mark of a twat, although perhaps not especially rude.  

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Watching people engaged in activities I consider to be an offensive waste of time, but they consider to be worthwhile ventures. An example would be people standing outside town halls booing and shouting abuse at gay people getting hitched.

rudi

Re: Daves. Oh my, yes. I'd always say goodbuye in those circumstances as that's the end of the interaction, isn't it?

I've just noticed how little I say it now to people I regularly talk to as, with the aid of mobile phones, it's rather like I'm holding a constant, though iterrupted, conversation with a few people in my life.

Rudeness in all its forms gets my teeth grinding - there's rarely any excuse for it (bar humour).

Little Hoover

Quote from: Artemis on June 09, 2007, 11:23:00 PM
Yes. Following on from that, people who think that because they share one solitary thing in common with you, they know you and/or can read you.

I was once very annoyed by the entire staff of Argos at my local store who all laughed at me for forgetting the receipt when requesting a refund on an item they sold me which was broken. I had the last laugh though, by going to their website and putting several heavy sets of weights on reserve, meaning they had to carry them to the reservation section then put them back again when I failed to turn up to buy them.

The Argos I worked at didn't have a reserve section, if a reserve order came through, you'd just have to go and check the item  had the right amount of stock, although sometimes people would people would just throw the reserve tickets away.

neveragain

Quote from: Pseudopath on June 10, 2007, 03:33:58 PM
How about checkout staff who tell you to enter your PIN a couple of seconds before the terminal is actually ready (because their screen is obviously not perfectly synchronised to the chip-and-PIN display) and look at you funny while you wait for the machine to catch up?

Exactly. That irritates the fuck out of me.

Also, I was once stopped in the street by a very posh middle-aged lady who poked at me and murmured 'Dewyu no-th'way too-vuh cabronk?' 'Sorry?', I replied, trying to work her out. 'The ca-bronk, the ca-bronk!' she shouted, forcing me to realise she was in search of the nearest cab rank. 'Oh' I said, about the recall and then relay the exact location of the most accessible area in which taxis wait for custom within this city centre, at which point she snorted and squawked 'You don't know, do you? You should SAY!' before trouncing off. Snooty incomprehensible bitch. Not a minor irritant, quite largely annoying really but still. Rudeness - I suppose that's what it comes under.

non capisco

Doing a sarcastic slow handclap whenever a glass is dropped somewhere in a pub.

Starting a sentence with "I'm not being funny, but..' How about letting me be the judge of that?

On the subject of work phonecalls, people who ring YOU and when you pick the phone up they're still having a conversation with someone else in their vicinity before they start talking to you. There was a woman I used to work with who did this literally every time she rang me.


Dark Sky

Quote from: 23 Daves on June 10, 2007, 03:40:23 PM
You'd think after a couple of years of them being introduced I'd have got used to the whole concept, but I am monumentally rubbish at using the chip and pin machines, and often find myself apologising because I know it must be exasperating to the people working on the till. Only yesterday, in fact, I said (after putting the card in the wrong way round): "I'm really sorry, I must have been the hundredth person to do that today, and I'm sure it must piss you off".  The cashier laughed, and didn't really disagree with me.

In my experience I'd say over half of customers (certainly where I work) need help using the chip and pin machines, whether it's because they get their card in the wrong way round, don't know when to type their pin, don't know to press the green button afterwards, or just don't even bother trying to use it and just hand you their card.  And to be honest, telling people "chip in, card face down...no, that way...no, flip it again...yes, that's it - NO how it just was...YES that's the bugger" each time is just part and parcel of every transaction, so it doesn't really annoy me any more than asking each customer if they want a carrier bag or not.

I hate people who talk / rustle / move when I'm trying to watch TV or a film at the cinema or at a play or anything.  I know this is a really common complaint, and yet despite that it still goes on and it drives me absolutely fucking up the wall every single time.  It just stresses me out so much.  I'm definitely going to be a stomach ulcer sufferer when I'm older, just because I go to the cinema too often.

Pylon Man

Lots of people wouldn't dare talk in a cinema, but they do when I'm trying to watch TV. They must think it's a "lesser" medium. And they have the audacity to glare at me when I turn it up. I don't why I'm saying "they" as if they're strangers, it's only members of my family that do this.

People driving at 35mph on a straightish 60mph road, seemingly oblivious to the 20 or so cars behind them that want to go faster.

People who have no concept of impatience, have a go at me for being impatient and use this an excuse for wasting my time.

Emma Raducanu

Old people who just stare at me. Yeh I look like a dolphin but you can't have a ride.

When strangers ask if they can lend my mobile phone.




Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: Dark Sky on June 10, 2007, 06:02:06 PM
I hate people who talk / rustle / move when I'm trying to watch TV or a film at the cinema or at a play or anything.  I know this is a really common complaint, and yet despite that it still goes on and it drives me absolutely fucking up the wall every single time.  It just stresses me out so much.  I'm definitely going to be a stomach ulcer sufferer when I'm older, just because I go to the cinema too often.

I just can't go to cinemas any more. I mean, when the opening credits are well underway and the sweet-rustlers still haven't settled down...

Bollocks to people who say 'I make sure I eat quietly' as well. Don't eat at all. I can still hear you. Watch the fucking film.

QuoteI'll add to this list ANYONE who says "the customer is always right".  No, they aren't.  The customer is never right.  Ever.  They just think they are.

I'd happily introduce on-the-spot executitions for people who hold mobile phone conversations while paying for stuff in shops. Their sheer obliviousness to their own rudeness used to infuriate me when I worked behind a till. Whenever I see someone do it now, I feel the same roar of rage. 'Hello? Yeah, it's fine, I can talk now, it's not as if I'm interacting with a proper human being or anything...'

Almost as bad are customer who hand you an apple core and say 'You got a bin?'.

Waking Life

People who blindly believe urban legends and won't hear any argument against them, particularly "the traces of five guys semen in food" story and go to the extent of saying it was even in their local paper.  Or that it happened to their cousins friend.  I know Snopes can be cynical but I have a fair degree of trust in it but referring to a website hardly backs up an argument in real life.  I had an exasperating discussion about how swallowing 8 spiders a year was bullshit with a friend once and he was arguing that it was ridiculous that I trusted an internet site for truth on a matter.

Cinema people piss me off as well although I got my pay off when I got a group of unruly kids, who were using the cinema as a drinking place, kicked out from Notes On A Scandal and subsequently banned.  They were still arguing with the ushers when I was leaving which was when I found out about the banned thing, although in all fairness I thought they may have been waiting on me to beat me up.  Scary and embarrassing.

I work in a call centre and have a hatred of husband and wife teams who phone up and have the wife doing the talking but the husband telling her what to say in the background.  Usually quite aggressively and angrily as if I can't hear the dick head.  It usually ends up in him eventually grabbing the phone off the wife and talking a lot calmer although it will invariably end in an argument.

People that have their 4 year olds record their answer phone message.  "This is the ..... (mum in background telling her to say house) house of the Smith family.  Please....leave a message.....and we get back to you.  Byeeeee".

People who still point out how Alanis Morrissette's ironic isn't actually ironic.

People who are really into guitar based music but attest to The Beatles being a shitty boy band.  There may be some here, but it just really irritates me and I'm sure I don't have to explain why.

Ranting.  This is obviously hypocritical due to the nature of this post, but it annoys me when people go on long rants in real life.  No one asked to hear your Richard Littlejohn regurgitations.

The horrible nasally, gravelly, aggressive shouts that a lot of Glaswegian drunks or junkies make.  It really grates on me and actually swings my thoughts towards violence, which makes me dislike myself for being an intolerant cunt.  But it is just so annoying.  This is obviously a localised thing for me, but I'm sure similar vocal noises happen in other cities.

Fielding

Quote from: Pylon Man on June 10, 2007, 06:27:01 PM
People driving at 35mph on a straightish 60mph road, seemingly oblivious to the 20 or so cars behind them that want to go faster.

Yes, some people seem to drive at around 40mph whatever the speed limit is. I'll be right behind them going through a 60 mph road, then when they reach a 30 zone they start to pull away from me as I slow down to observe the speed limit. It's almost as if they think driving below the speed limit builds you 'speed credit' which can then be used to break the speed limit later on. Either that or they are in a real life "Speed" (the film) type drama: trapped in a Citroen Xsara, rigged to blow should it drop below 36 mph.

Also people who mess with stuff whilst I'm driving. I'm like Captain Slow in that I like to have all the air vents lined up in the same way, but people always have to fiddle with them and mess them up. Then they'll fiddle with the windows, the heater settings, the a/c, the radio - put it on some ridiculous equaliser setting and set all the presets to be radio 1. Leave greasy finger marks over the windows, move the passenger seat out of position so it isn't symmetrical with the driver's seat - ffs! Basically if you want a ride in my car, either wear a straight jacket or travel in the boot.

Quote from: non capisco on June 10, 2007, 05:32:59 PM
Starting a sentence with "I'm not being funny, but..' How about letting me be the judge of that?

"Don't take offence, but..." is another good one morons come out with.

Also, people - or more specifically men, who think it is acceptable to make small talk whilst peeing into a urinal. "I am standing here with my genitalia in my hand directing a streaming flow of warm golden urine into a stainless steel piss trough  - I do not feel comfortable making engaging in chit chat about how the evening is going thank you very much!" Doubly upsetting if they are the kind of person who articulates everything they say with their hands...and try to make eye contact as they speak.

I also hate:
People who say "Oh man. I'm going to get so wasted tonight." Followed by the type of people who loudly encourage others to get "wasted" and ply already drunk people with more drink "cause it'll be a laugh" along with the British attitude to drink in general.

*and relax*

purlieu

Quote from: Pylon Man on June 10, 2007, 06:27:01 PM
Lots of people wouldn't dare talk in a cinema, but they do when I'm trying to watch TV. They must think it's a "lesser" medium.
To be fair, you haven't gone out of your way to walk into town a pay £5.50 to watch a TV programme.

Following on from Pylon Man, people who judge a night on how 'messy' it was, how 'wasted' they were &c.  Yeah, if you're working full time, having a big night can be really enjoyable, but the idea that 'messy' = good is really fucking irritating.  Especially every Saturday and Sunday afternoon when I log into MySpace and see ten bulletins entitled 'last night', which I can guarantee will talk about how amazingly fucked the person was.

neveragain

Ah, you see, I'm getting a tad riled now. At the moment I'm at university and, while I know it will be stupid and irresponsible to act like this in 'real life', I am currently more than content to spend most nights getting dreadfully drunk (or reaching that effect in similar means) with friends and then wistfully reminiscing about ridiculous the whole endeavour is for a while afterwards - and of course I do mean with the inbuilt notion of 'control' still sitting firmly in the back of my mind. Another reason this is an enjoyable passtime is that when I'm not doing this I'm working as hard as possible. No sneering please, this is true. This turning into a rant about people who believe university is an easy ride, or that all students are smelly arrogant pissheads. For the most part (in my glorious experience thus far, at least), those that people universities are very pleasant folk simply enjoying the company of like-minded types and harbouring views about a 'perfect society' that may or may not be naive and unworkable in the big 'real world'... but there's nothing wrong with giving it a shot in this safe space. Surely? Don't deny us that, the right to work things out at our own speed and possibly find a useful mental position at the end of it. Opinions will most probably change, but let them do so in their own course. Ended on a pun there. It's a thing of growth, university, and if we all look smug then it's because we're enjoying ourselves.

Basically, you have to have something to look back on with fondness and it seems that those who sneer at students' lifestyles only do so because they weren't given the chance to have as much fun.

Edit: I shall be embarrassed I wrote this in the morning. Lots of it will sound like bollocks but, in a nutshell, I'm happy for the first time in my life and that is what I mean to express. This post will probably result in outpourings of scorn, derision, mortified silence and/or general shouting down but so what? My confidence has risen (or finally appeared) in such a sense that I couldn't care less.

purlieu

Oh, I'm still technically a student for another three weeks, and I've had my fair share of 'getting wasted', I just find the whole attitude very quantity over quality. 
"How was last night?"
"Messy"
No.  How was it?  Did you enjoy the music?  The company?  Did you meet an attractive girl?  Was the atmosphere at the club/party enjoyable or uncomfortable?  Not how much of a state were you in.

neveragain

Oh, of course, apologies, those are the most important aspects - the things that make a night enjoyable or not.

niat

This has, like, totally turned into a "Things that annoy you" thread. Good. Here are some things that annoy me:

Blokes who sigh loudly when taking a piss, as if they are getting some sort of sexual pleasure from urinating. Maybe they are, but they should still shut the fuck up.

Blokes who use the cubicle next to me when I'm having my daily dump at work. There are 5 traps; if they are all free I usually go in the one nearest the door. It annoys me intensely if someone comes in and chooses to have a piss in the trap next to mine. Have they no concept of a "buffer zone"?

Blokes who have a piss in a cubicle and don't shut the door.

That's the toilet-related ones out of the way, to change the subject: Women (always) who take ages fiddling with their purse at the checkout, as if the thought that they actually have to pay for their shopping has just occurred to them. Invariably these are the ones who then have to painstakingly put their change into 10 different compartments in their purse, stand in the way so you can't get your basket anywhere near the till, and ask for a lottery ticket once it looks like they are finally ready to fuck off home.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Emergency Lalla Ward Ten on June 10, 2007, 07:26:53 PM
I just can't go to cinemas any more. I mean, when the opening credits are well underway and the sweet-rustlers still haven't settled down...

Bollocks to people who say 'I make sure I eat quietly' as well. Don't eat at all. I can still hear you. Watch the fucking film.

I was exactly the same, but I found that afternoon screenings in out of the way cinemas in London a week or two after a film's been released solves the problem. On weekdays only though of course, which admittedly makes it quite difficult to do for a lot of people.

Utter Shit

Quote from: purlieu on June 10, 2007, 10:25:41 PM
Oh, I'm still technically a student for another three weeks, and I've had my fair share of 'getting wasted', I just find the whole attitude very quantity over quality. 
"How was last night?"
"Messy"
No.  How was it?  Did you enjoy the music?  The company?  Did you meet an attractive girl?  Was the atmosphere at the club/party enjoyable or uncomfortable?  Not how much of a state were you in.
But the more drink you have, the less likely you are to remember much other than that you were very drunk.

Artemis

Quote from: Fielding on June 10, 2007, 09:23:19 PMPeople who say "Oh man. I'm going to get so wasted tonight." Followed by the type of people who loudly encourage others to get "wasted" and ply already drunk people with more drink "cause it'll be a laugh" along with the British attitude to drink in general.

Oh absolutely. People who equate the quality of the previous evening by how drunk they got are high on the list of people who irritate the living shit out of me.

Big Issue sellers who ask me, quite reasonably, if I'd like to buy a copy of Big Issue when I'm going into a shop, and then ask me again two minutes later when I'm coming out of the shop. The answer's still no, dude! Also, Big Issue sellers who insist audibly on asking you despite the fact that you are the only person in a ten meter radius, and they have a fluorescent jacket on, and you've already made eye contact and smiled politely in a way that already indicates you've acknowledged their presence but aren't interested this time. 

People who don't say thank you if you hold the door open for them, forcing you to regret being so polite but being powerless to do anything about it.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: niat on June 10, 2007, 11:07:28 PM
That's the toilet-related ones out of the way

Hang on, you forgot: grown men who refer to urine as 'wee'.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: Waking Life on June 10, 2007, 08:57:45 PM
I work in a call centre and have a hatred of husband and wife teams who phone up and have the wife doing the talking but the husband telling her what to say in the background.

Yes.

And also, people who insist on continuing with the call even though the line is astonishingly bad and their kids are screaming in the background.

'Is it a convenient time to speak to you this evening?'
'KkkkkkkxxxxxxxxxxYEAHIT'SFINEkkkkkkXXXXwaaaaaggggghhhh'
'Well, I'm calling on behalf of...'
'KkkkkWOT?Kkkkkxxxwaaaaaaggggghh...'




Godzilla Bankrolls

Add to that people who say "make it quick, mind" and then proceed to give you loads of irrelevant information and go on and on and on when you can get everything you need to know within 60 fucking seconds thank you for your time you've been most gracious goodbye.

I've long held the belief that people can be divided into two camps: those who treat service industry workers as human beings and those who are hellbound dregs. In China, I have plenty of people wanting to 'befriend' me simply for the face value of having a foreign acquaintance and within one lunch I know exactly which camp they fall into. If they talk down to the staff and order them around, that's the last I'll be seeing of them. It's the same in England though too, it always makes me cringe into the ground if you go out with a group of mates and one or two decide it's hilarious to be an awkward or 'witty' customer, particularly in an Indian or Chinese restaurant. I find it revolting to be honest and almost always have to make eye contact with the waiter and give an apologetic expression. I've only worked in a restaurant for a few months, a good restaurant with lots of regulars so I never really been on the tougher side of any of this, it's just something I've always been sensitive about. That aid, if you're working in the service industry and forget that you are in fact being paid money to provide a service, not to mope like a twat and sigh when the customer asks for help, then perhaps a change of career would be best.

Many of these are quite funny to me because I wonder how infuriated you'd be living in China, the home of the world's least logical people. There is a Chinese way of doing things which doesn't really allow for time-wasting thought or consideration - just follow the Chinese way! People have zero sense of space or privacy, zero consideration for strangers and I mean zero. If you're inside the circle, they're incredibly warm-hearted, open and generous. If they don't know you, your violent bus-related death in the middle of the street would be a five-minute distraction.

This means I regularly have to stop old women elbowing through me in the supermarket queue/pushy office workers barging onto the bus/blind parents with spoilt children in fast-food queues, I've now reached the point where I will just put my hand on their shoulder, look them in the eye and ask 'haven't you grown eyes yet?' (a mildly rude Chinese expression) which startles the living daylights out of the buggers but you've got to do it, you need to toughen up a little here. It's also quite good fun putting your hand on a stranger and telling them off, a luxury nobody could afford back home because you'd have twelve shades of shit knocked out of you.

People tend not to think about things like cause and effect, many people here are honestly like children in a way and just do what they feel like. I'm sure you can see how this works really well sometimes, particularly as regards hospitality or having a night out - they never think about 'work in the morning' or the like, it's a constant sense of cranking up the entertainment and the night only ends when you're exhausted, other commitments are completely out of mind. There's a completely refreshing lack of cynicism, people are generally blindly positive which I often find amusing but nonetheless, it's quite charming to give a writing assignment to a class and have them all talk about how bright their future will be. On the other hand, the one-child policy has created a society blighted with only child syndrome, selfish, spoilt cunts who expect and who are unable to see themselves in relation to others.

They can be as petulant and selfish as children, as I find more and more adults in the UK who refuse to grow up. God, it riles me to see a mother and daughter, the younger dressed well beyond her years with stupid make-up plastered all over her face, some vile sexually provocative slogan stretched over her pubescent chest whilst the mother is wearing matching clobber about twenty years too young for her. It makes me feel ill.

This isn't quite as bad as the manboys who almost can't believe their luck that they can go and get a pint at the big boys' pub AND play on the XBox eating take-out AND actually honk on some real boobs! All their ten year old's dreams coming true finally with no sense of what it actually means to be an adult, giving it the big 'I AM' in public while nervously fidgeting and looking round to see if they're going to be caught out at some point. It makes me cringe.

Oh, I also hate people talking about their experiences in fucking China or wherever. And people looking down on the uneducated and aspirational who don't really harm anyone. And faux self-deprecation from arrogant know-it-alls.

Jackson K Pollock

Quote from: DolphinFace on June 10, 2007, 07:14:35 PM
When strangers ask if they can lend my mobile phone.

People who say 'lend' when they mean 'borrow'.

No offence!

All Surrogate

Quote from: The Boston Crab on June 11, 2007, 01:15:39 AM... only child syndrome, selfish, spoilt cunts who expect and who are unable to see themselves in relation to others.
Gee, thanks.

Artemis

Heh, China's a headfuck. I spent ten days in Shanghai last year and it's really true what you say - the concept of being patient, queuing, consideration for others is just non-existent, and I say that as an observation rather then a judgment.

Another for the list: women who presume, even before you've opened your mouth, that the reason you are speaking to them is to attempt to woo them into bed.

People who get up the second a movie has finished at the cinema. Like they just have to get up the nano-second the first credit appears because their lives are so busy and important they have things they need to rush and do.