Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"

[ABay]

Every time I open my office window, landscapers appear from out of nowhere to cut the grass right outside it. Every time! It's like turning the latch sets off an alarm at Grass Cutter HQ and they hurry on over just to cut that particular patch of grass.

[bilgistic]

That last sentence made me literally "LOL"!

Edited June 11, 2019 by bilgistic

[Guest]

My house.... One thing fixed another thing breaks.

My dryer started screeching as soon as I hung up from the appliance repairman calling to say he was on his way to fix the frig.  And no, he didn't have dryer parts so got that to do still.

Edited June 11, 2019 by ParadoxLost

[peacheslatour]

17 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

My house.... One thing fixed another thing breaks.

My dryer started screeching as soon as I hung up from the appliance repairman calling to say he was on his way to fix the frig.  And no, he didn't have dryer parts so got that to do still.

Seems like it always happens that way. 😖

[Bastet]

21 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

My house.... One thing fixed another thing breaks.

Pretty much everyone's house - I swear appliances make suicide pacts.  My worst was a three-fer; I once spent a weekend repairing the washing machine and refrigerator, plus replacing the garbage disposal.

I am also prone to having to pause a project to fix something on a tool I'm using for the project.

[Frisson]

I don’t know anything about how 911 operators are trained to take calls. As I’ve been listening to too many true crime podcasts lately, I’ve heard a lot of fatal 911 calls lately. It is so sad/frustrating to hear that the last person a lot of these victims talked to was someone who sounded annoyed, impatient, or even bored. I probably could never do that job, and I get that there is a certain amount of objectivity required, but it sounds like some are going too far. To respond to a woman screaming, “He’s coming!” and gunshots followed by silence, with “Hello?!” in a bored teenager voice is beyond my understanding. This might be more than just a peeve. Sorry. 

[Annber03]

32 minutes ago, Frisson said:

It is so sad/frustrating to hear that the last person a lot of these victims talked to was someone who sounded annoyed, impatient, or even bored. I probably could never do that job, and I get that there is a certain amount of objectivity required, but it sounds like some are going too far.

Looking at you, 911 operator in the Josh Powell case. 

But yeah, fully agreed. I completely understand trying to get the caller to calm down  so they can figure out what's going on and where to send help, of course, and god knows that job would be stressful on the best of days. I don't doubt some calls would be very frustrating for a 911 operator to deal with, for a whole host of reasons. 

But that's supposed to be what the training is for, and if you don't think you have the patience and temperament required for that kind of job, then maybe it's not the job for you. 

Quote

To respond to a woman screaming, “He’s coming!” and gunshots followed by silence, with “Hello?!” in a bored teenager voice is beyond my understanding. This might be more than just a peeve. Sorry. 

On that note, I've always wondered over the years why 911 operators haven't come up with some kind of system to communicate with callers who are hiding from an intruder without having to actually speak to them, so they can avoid risking the caller's voice tipping off the intruder (or if there is a system like that out there, it doesn't seem to be publicized enough). Given the advancements in texting nowadays and whatnot, are there any programs like that being talked about or implemented? I'd be very surprised if that weren't the case. 

[Bastet]

4 hours ago, Frisson said:

I don’t know anything about how 911 operators are trained to take calls. As I’ve been listening to too many true crime podcasts lately, I’ve heard a lot of fatal 911 calls lately. It is so sad/frustrating to hear that the last person a lot of these victims talked to was someone who sounded annoyed, impatient, or even bored.

Oh, the number of those recordings I've listened to through my legal/policy work in domestic violence cases is sickening.  And in some cases haunting; hearing someone's terrified screams and pleas for help is not something that just goes away, especially when those wind up being their final moments.  With some of them, I've cried, thrown up, gone pale and numb, you name it.  I'm a little shaky now just thinking about them, because the memories of "the worst of the worst" (for whatever reasons they registered in my brain that way) are so clear.

(Which is one of the most-extreme reasons it's a difficult job these folks have - I extrapolate from how it feels to listen to after the fact to how it must feel to listen to someone get raped or murdered in real time and not be able to do anything, and it kind of blows my mind - and I tip my hat to the majority of emergency dispatch operators who do it well.  But, holy crap, there are too many avoidable "mistakes".)

Edited June 12, 2019 by Bastet

[Annber03]

If you want to feel a little better, here's an example of a 911 operator doing it right. The call in this ad was apparently based off a real life 911 call:

[ABay]

51 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

On that note, I've always wondered over the years why 911 operators haven't come up with some kind of system to communicate with callers who are hiding from an intruder without having to actually speak to them, so they can avoid risking the caller's voice tipping off the intruder (or if there is a system like that out there, it doesn't seem to be publicized enough). Given the advancements in texting nowadays and whatnot, are there any programs like that being talked about or implemented? I'd be very surprised if that weren't the case. 

I've seen PSAs for texting for help here in CT. The slogan is something like "when it's not safe to talk, you can still get help."

[Moose135]

47 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

If you want to feel a little better, here's an example of a 911 operator doing it right. The call in this ad was apparently based off a real life 911 call:

Yes, that's based on a true event. I don't remember the details of where and when it happened, but I remember reading about it in the news afterwards.

[Frisson]

Thank you for that! I was tearing up with how calm and smart that operator and caller were. I hope she was safe in the end.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, Moose135 said:

Yes, that's based on a true event. I don't remember the details of where and when it happened, but I remember reading about it in the news afterwards.

The commercial - created by the NFL's internal ad agency to air during the Super Bowl in donated (or "donated") air time to combat the League's (well-earned) horrible reputation in dealing with domestic violence among its players - is widely reported to be based on a call described in a Reddit post, an answer to an AskReddit "What's your most unforgettable call?" question posed to dispatchers that went viral.  Buzzfeed interviewed the poster, who said it happened about 10 years before his post, but Snopes notes a PSA by a Norwegian DV shelter several years earlier than the question and answer used the same "pizza call" scenario with a little less detail.  So who knows?

Edited June 12, 2019 by Bastet

[Brookside]

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Edited June 12, 2019 by Brookside

[AgentRXS]

14 hours ago, ABay said:

Every time I open my office window, landscapers appear from out of nowhere to cut the grass right outside it. Every time! It's like turning the latch sets off an alarm at Grass Cutter HQ and they hurry on over just to cut that particular patch of grass

Every day, one neighbor or another is mowing/having their landscapers mow their lawn. I especially love when they do it early Sunday AM. I rarely wake up naturally anymore. Its always to the sound of some mower/machinery.

[Mindthinkr]

8 hours ago, AgentRXS said:

Every day, one neighbor or another is mowing/having their landscapers mow their lawn. I especially love when they do it early Sunday AM. I rarely wake up naturally anymore. Its always to the sound of some mower/machinery.

Or allow me to guess...the sound of your kitties wanting to be fed. 

[AgentRXS]

1 minute ago, Mindthinkr said:

Or allow me to guess...the sound of your kitties wanting to be fed. 

Actually, my cats are pretty respectful. Diamond will come up to me but will not start with the meowing and the coaxing until she sees my eyes are open. Ella doesn't care about getting fed until I walk into the kitchen.

If I were to sleep in too long, Diamond would walk over me in an effort to get me to wake up. But she'll only do it once, though.

[KittyMom4]

9 hours ago, AgentRXS said:

Every day, one neighbor or another is mowing/having their landscapers mow their lawn. I especially love when they do it early Sunday AM. I rarely wake up naturally anymore. Its always to the sound of some mower/machinery.

I have the same problem, and they start around 7:30am, I get it, it's summer but geez, I'd like to not hear that until at least 9:00am....

[ABay]

Pet peeve: English people who pronounce Rs as Ws. It's not a speech impediment, it seems to be a perfectly acceptable thing, like sticking Rs at the end of words that end in A. If you watch any UK TV, you know what I mean. Jonathan Ross is an example. I'm listening to a podcast right now and want to reach through the internet and smack this woman. It's HenRy, not HenWy. 

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, ABay said:

it seems to be a perfectly acceptable thing, like sticking Rs at the end of words that end in A

My mom did that, but what I don't get is then she would drop the Rs off of words that ended in r.  She would say (OK she would never actually say this sentence), "I'm going to play canaster while looking at myself in the mirra.  

I just don't get it.  You would think if yo don't like Rs, you wouldn't add them, and if you do like them so much that you add them to other words, you wouldn't drop them off words that have them.  It boggles my mind.

[millennium]

People who lean on their shopping carts while pushing them, as if the basket portion of the cart is a resting station for their forearms and upper body.   They always meander too slowly as if they're the only person in the store, oblivious that people like me are trying to get around them.  

[topanga]

5 minutes ago, Katy M said:

My mom did that, but what I don't get is then she would drop the Rs off of words that ended in r.  She would say (OK she would never actually say this sentence), "I'm going to play canaster while looking at myself in the mirra.  

I just don't get it.  You would think if yo don't like Rs, you wouldn't add them, and if you do like them so much that you add them to other words, you wouldn't drop them off words that have them.  It boggles my mind.

It must have been the way the she was taught to speak. Where did your mom grow up, and what ethnicity are your relatives? 

[Katy M]

30 minutes ago, topanga said:

It must have been the way the she was taught to speak. Where did your mom grow up, and what ethnicity are your relatives? 

New Hampshire. It's a typical accent for parts of New England.  It just drives me bonkers.  I also hate Boston accents.    Of course, my Vermont accent is beyond reproach🙂  Especially as I make sure to over-enunciate the last consonant of every sentence.

[bilgistic]

2 hours ago, millennium said:

People who lean on their shopping carts while pushing them, as if the basket portion of the cart is a resting station for their forearms and upper body.   They always meander too slowly as if they're the only person in the store, oblivious that people like me are trying to get around them.  

I have found in my store that some people who do that have mobility issues. Some people who use a cane to walk will instead use the cart to stabilize themselves and put the cane in the cart. This certainly isn't the case with everyone, of course (two of our perfectly mobile stocking employees shuffle through the store leaning on their carts), but it's fairly common.

I have a lot more patience for them than I do for the totally able folks who use the battery-powered mart carts (like so they can take their kid(s) on a "ride"), taking them from people who really need them.

[millennium]

21 minutes ago, bilgistic said:

I have found in my store that some people who do that have mobility issues. Some people who use a cane to walk will instead use the cart to stabilize themselves and put the cane in the cart. This certainly isn't the case with everyone, of course (two of our perfectly mobile stocking employees shuffle through the store leaning on their carts), but it's fairly common.

I have a lot more patience for them than I do for the totally able folks who use the battery-powered mart carts (like so they can take their kid(s) on a "ride"), taking them from people who really need them.

The only mobility issues I have seen is that many of them are overweight.

We don't have battery powered carts.   We do have a 6-ft-tall, googly-eyed robot that wanders around the store like a rhoomba monitoring people and what they buy.   The store manager says, "the robot is just searching for spills in the aisle, etc." which I suppose is why it is equipped with a battery of high-powered cameras and sometimes will tail certain shoppers down the aisle and all the way to the check-out.

The robot irks me more than the people leaning on the carriages.

Edited June 14, 2019 by millennium

[millennium]

The robots have been deployed in several grocery chains throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut:

[ABay]

There's one in my local S&S but I only see it occasionally. Another advantage to shopping at crack o' dawn, I guess, in addition to not having to deal with too many other people. However, this morning was unusually busy for 6:30 on a Saturday and I really resented it. Shopping when I'm shopping. The nerve! I did get one of the rare small carts, though, so that was nice.

[Guest]

17 hours ago, millennium said:

The robot irks me more than the people leaning on the carriages.

The robot pisses me off. I shop at two different Giants (one is closer to my work than my home so it depends on where I am which store I go to) and both stores have those creepy things meandering around. This Washington Post article has a quote from some "store optimization" clown who says the "large majority" of people are "excited" to have a robot in the store. Really? "Excited?" How "exciting" that one of those things was clogging up the already-tight produce section I tried to get to the other day. And how "exciting" is it that it has several cameras in it so that I can be surveilled by yet another corporate entity eager to invade the minuscule amount of privacy I have left? 

So, yeah. My pet peeve is that the robot uprising I've been promised all of my life is taking place among shelves stocked with tampons, avocados, and peanut butter. 

[millennium]

4 hours ago, ABay said:

 I did get one of the rare small carts, though, so that was nice.

Isn't it sad that modern life chips away at us so much that we actually appreciate getting one of the small carts?   lol

[annzeepark914]

Wegmans has lots of the small carts which I always grab.  The other supermarkets either don't have them or only have a few. I don't care if the groceries are hanging all over the place in/on my cart...it's just so much easier to maneuver those little carts vs the big ones. I think I'm going to ask the mgr at Harris Teeter to get some more (I'll be wearing my post-back surgery brace anyway so she'll get the message that these little carts are good for some of their customers).

[emma675]

I am so mad at myself. I clumsily dropped a glass bottle of juice across the top of my toes and I'm pretty sure my big toe is broken. I've got it wrapped in ice packs and elevated, but it's a throbbing mess and I can barely stand on it. Plus, I leave on vacation in less than 6 weeks. I only hope the podiatrist can get me in on Monday and I don't need surgery. 

[ABay]

12 hours ago, annzeepark914 said:

Wegmans has lots of the small carts which I always grab.  The other supermarkets either don't have them or only have a few. I don't care if the groceries are hanging all over the place in/on my cart...it's just so much easier to maneuver those little carts vs the big ones. I think I'm going to ask the mgr at Harris Teeter to get some more (I'll be wearing my post-back surgery brace anyway so she'll get the message that these little carts are good for some of their customers).

Wegman's is just the best. They actually respond to their customers' needs and listen to their employees. In a few years, I'll probably move back to Western New York and I swear it's partly because nothing comes close to Wegman's.

I've asked managers at S&S to get more small carts and they whine that "People steal them". No doubt they do, but people also steal the large carts and you still have them. Maybe, I don't know, LOCK them up like you do the huge numbers of your mammoth carts?

[Browncoat]

My store has plenty of the small carts (I call them the sports car carts), and I love them.  But I noticed yesterday that they've put anti-theft devices on all of the carts (large and small) -- the carts will beep when you take them out of the store, and the wheels will lock if you try to take them past a certain perimeter of the store. 

[Mindthinkr]

1 hour ago, Browncoat said:

My store has plenty of the small carts (I call them the sports car carts), and I love them.  But I noticed yesterday that they've put anti-theft devices on all of the carts (large and small) -- the carts will beep when you take them out of the store, and the wheels will lock if you try to take them past a certain perimeter of the store. 

That sounds like a better solution than denying us access to the small carts because of the cost of replacing them. 

[TattleTeeny]

A retail peeve: "no, we can't do that" with no explanation. I was at Kohl's looking for a specific style of Levi's (I put a hole in the knee of my few office-acceptable pairs). Couldn't find them, and I even looked through all the piles of other styles. Then I found the exact ones on the mannequin. I asked not one but two ladies who worked there if it was OK if I took those. They just said no, we can't do that--as if I asked them to model them for me. WHY? I asked again and they said that they'd have to ask a manager...and then continued what they were doing!

Suffice it to say I now have them.

[emma675]

TattleTeeny, did you strip down the mannequin yourself? 🤣

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, emma675 said:

TattleTeeny, did you strip down the mannequin yourself? 🤣

I've done it. 😎

[TattleTeeny]

I did. And old woman glanced at the employees, nodded at me in solidarity, and said "GOOD!"

It's just so stupid--though I don't even know for sure it was an official policy at all!

Edited June 17, 2019 by TattleTeeny

[auntlada]

I don't understand why a salesperson wouldn't be willing to do that to make a sale. It's better than hanging onto the item until it has to be marked down.

[TattleTeeny]

On 6/10/2019 at 9:31 AM, JTMacc99 said:

One of my friends and her boyfriend are constantly on the lookout for things they TALKED about suddenly showing up in their targeted advertising. They've given me enough examples that I'm starting to believe her. 

My BF and I test this sometimes by loudly and repeatedly mentioning something out of the ordinary (broccoli rabe, Cousin Larry Appleton, parachute pants, Craig T. Nelson, Sham-Wow...). We don't have an Echo or Alexa or whatever but somehow it still happens! Once at a garage sale, I saw a cat-eye (not a real one, mind you!) pendant and meant to circle back and grab it after I finished browsing the other stuff. I forgot and when we were back in the car, I said, "Oh crap, I forgot to get the cool cat-eye necklace." I should add that my phone was buried inside my bag. When I got home and looked at Facebook, there it was--and Ebay ad for that pendant!

Edited June 17, 2019 by TattleTeeny

[Moose135]

On 6/14/2019 at 3:38 PM, millennium said:

People who lean on their shopping carts while pushing them, as if the basket portion of the cart is a resting station for their forearms and upper body.   They always meander too slowly as if they're the only person in the store, oblivious that people like me are trying to get around them.  

I'll lean on the basket when I'm at the supermarket, but that makes me more streamlined so I can go faster down the aisles.

[TattleTeeny]

I am confused by the pizza 911 thing. If people are in the throes of some horrible violent scenario, wouldn't the aggressor likely stop the victim (or the person trying to help/protect the victim) from using the phone to call for pizza--or at least find it strange?

ETA: I guess in a moment of calm after a domestic abuse situation, maybe? Forgive me; I may be being dense here! I am grateful to say I don't have much non-TV familiarity with this kind of horror.

Edited June 17, 2019 by TattleTeeny

[millennium]

1 hour ago, TattleTeeny said:

My BF and I test this sometimes by loudly and repeatedly mentioning something out of the ordinary (broccoli rabe, Cousin Larry Appleton, parachute pants, Craig T. Nelson, Sham-Wow...). We don't have an Echo or Alexa or whatever but somehow it still happens! Once at a garage sale, I saw a cat-eye (not a real one, mind you!) pendant and meant to circle back and grab it after I finished browsing the other stuff. I forgot and when we were back in the car, I said, "Oh crap, I forgot to get the cool cat-eye necklace." I should add that my phone was buried inside my bag. When I got home and looked at Facebook, there it was--and Ebay ad for that pendant!

Twice in the past month I have experienced this phenomenon.  I don't look too closely for it but when the product mentioned is outside my day to day existence and is mentioned in passing, or as a joke, and then hours later it turns up in my targeted advertising, well, it's hard to ignore.

Coincidence?   Maybe.  I don't have any of those google/amazon home devices.  I don't even own a smartphone.   I can't explain it.

[Nordly Beaumont]

1 hour ago, TattleTeeny said:

ETA: I guess in a moment of calm after a domestic abuse situation, maybe? Forgive me; I may be being dense here! I am grateful to say I don't have much non-TV familiarity with this kind of horror.

This is what I understood the situation to be (heard about it on a morning radio show). She suggested calming down and ordering a pizza, he agreed.

[bilgistic]

2 hours ago, TattleTeeny said:

My BF and I test this sometimes by loudly and repeatedly mentioning something out of the ordinary (broccoli rabe, Cousin Larry Appleton, parachute pants, Craig T. Nelson, Sham-Wow...). We don't have an Echo or Alexa or whatever but somehow it still happens! Once at a garage sale, I saw a cat-eye (not a real one, mind you!) pendant and meant to circle back and grab it after I finished browsing the other stuff. I forgot and when we were back in the car, I said, "Oh crap, I forgot to get the cool cat-eye necklace." I should add that my phone was buried inside my bag. When I got home and looked at Facebook, there it was--and Ebay ad for that pendant!

Anything that we discuss at any length in these forums eventually shows up in ads in my (this) browser. A while back, we talked about walk-in tubs, which is not something I have any need for, but just because I had the text on my screen, I started getting ads for them. I probably will get them again now.

I clear my browser cache/history at least once daily just so I don't see the targeted ads.

[AgentRXS]

Yeah, someone here mentioned the Purple mattress one time, and I got nothing but those ads for months on end. I still get them from time to time.

Edited June 17, 2019 by AgentRXS

[Katy M]

I feel like all my pet peeves are about driving.  Maybe we should outlaw cars:)

So, today I stopped to let a car turn left.  The light 20 feet ahead or so was red and there were already  cars lined up, so why not.  the truck behind me blasted his horn.  I rolled my eyes, the car turned left and I proceeded to the stop light where we had to stop.  So, yeah, buddy, I cost you 0 time.    Then the light turns green and we go and halfway towards the next light the car ahead of me is going to turn left.  I decide to just hang back and let the truck go right around us, which he did.  And I don't have a radar gun, but there was no way he wasn't speeding.  He was clearly trying to make the next light which he just barely did.  Had I gone right around the car he wouldn't have made it, because I was driving a more reasonable speed.  I don't know what his hurry was, but I hope he makes it alive to wherever he's going.

[TattleTeeny]

How about the red-light inchers...

who seem to forget about the moving part just as the light turns green? Like now you become patient about it?

[Guest]

I hate the person who wrote that smoothie recipe.

I hate the editor that allowed it in that magazine.

I hate myself for going against my better judgement and not altering the recipe. Seriously a third of a cup of mint leaves is a bad idea and I knew better.

I hate myself for finishing the smoothie, but veggie smoothies aren't supposed to be "good".

I'm still feeling vaguely ill two hours later.

[tinkerbell]

On 6/16/2019 at 9:25 AM, ABay said:

I've asked managers at S&S to get more small carts and they whine that "People steal them". No doubt they do, but people also steal the large carts and you still have them. Maybe, I don't know, LOCK them up like you do the huge numbers of your mammoth carts?

I talked to a grocery store manager about this.  Notice when a new store opens they have a bunch of those little "kiddie shopping carts"  so that kids can push them through the store and shop with their parents?   And then they don't have any.   The store manager told me that grocery stores order a certain amount of these when the store opens, and then not order any more after they all "disappear"  into minivans.   Honestly, wouldn't you be embarrassed to have people see that you own a child-size shopping cart with the name of a store on it?