The Peevery

I Spy Hypocrisy

So, you are telling me that,

(1) we should legalize all illegal aliens because most of them are just trying to feed their families and that the murderers and drug smugglers are the exception, not the norm,

but you are also saying that,

(2) we should not racially profile people in the search for terrorists because Jihad Jane is a blue-eyed blonde, thereby proving that racial profiling won't work.

If you don't see the hypocrisy there, we can't be friends.

Just Leave A Message

I may be alone in this, but I really wish recruiters would just leave the message that I didn't get the job on my voicemail.  They could just say, "Hi, This is Jane calling from XYZ company, while your resume was impressive we've decided to hire another candidate.  Good luck in your job search."  It would be so much easier to get that voicemail than the one where they just say "call me back" which I tend to believe means they want me.  (This goes double if they call both my phone numbers and leave messages on both home and cell phones.)

#FML

I never use the acronym FML or use the #FML hashtag on Twitter (it stands for Fuck My Life) because I have a pretty good life, even if things aren't going very well, but god damn this last month has been trying.

Biggest Peeve Ever

Nancy Grace.

Hey Chatty Cathy

The bleeding of the ears of the office staff at the onset of your story-telling is not coincidental. Shut your damn pie-hole for once.

And I am telling you...

Dear Chatty Windbag,

Thank you for contacting me today and talking my ear off for thirty minutes straight without taking a pause to even hear me try to interrupt you. It's not like I had anything better to do while you ran your mouth about all the need in the world and all the wonder you accomplish.  My only consolation is that I was being paid to listen to you.

Here's a tip. If you are calling someone to ask for something, make your case briefly and then shut up, listen, and engage in an actual conversation. Oh, and lay off the meth.

Sincerely,

blaugra

I'm not an ass.

My last name ends with the letters "us." 

It is pronounced like "us." I pronounce it like "us" when I meet people.

I am forever being pronounced with an "ass" on the end.

I am forever being misspelled with "as" instead of "us." 

Recently, I sent a donation somewhere using the old fashioned check with a letter and envelope through the mail.  My last name appeared typed on the check, on the letter in two places, and on my return address.

In response I got a very nice thank you-note addressed with "AS."  The flaky misspelling of names is one of my biggest peeves ever, and you have not heard the last of me on this topic.

It really does chap my ass.

My friends really get me.

My friend and former Peever, David, posted a link to this on Twitter for me. There has never been a more accurate depiction of my personality and my ideal world. For god's sake, she even has the same hair I do.

You can find this comic and 1,500 others by Natalie Dee at www.nataliedee.com. This one is titled, "MW i don't care what you eat tell me about it again I will eat YOU." Am I in love with Natalie Dee? I think I might be.

Legal Advice, Por Favor

Just checking to see if I'm required to stop for pedestrians who are not using the 30 feet of crosswalk in front of the grocery store.  Thoughts?

That's Not My Name

To whom it may concern:

I am inquiring if you could send something to me.

Sincerely, Ed

----------------------------------

Dear Ed:

Yes, I could send something to you.

Sincerely, Laura

---------------------------------

Dear Linda:

Great. I look forward to receiving your something! Thank you.

Sincerely, Ed

---------------------------------

Dear Dildo:

If you're going to ask me for something at least get my name right. It's right there in our email chain. You're like the 60th person to call me Linda and you've pushed me over the edge. Oh, Dildo isn't your name? I'm soooo sorry. There's a "d" in it so I thought I was close.

Sincerely, Laura a.k.a. Blaugra

Reader Peeves: Epic Tome Edition

Have a peeve? Send it in. peevedmichelle at yahoo dot com

Putnawa (former Peever!) has a peeve:

Sprint: The name of your company and what I will do to get away from you

Dear Sprint,

I've been a loyal customer for a long time. A very long time. Two transcontinental moves kind of long. I've purchased four phones from you. (It should only have been three, but I dropped one in a teeny, tiny cup of water once and it died and needed replacing.) I've upgraded my plan five times. I've paid extra charges -- while unemployed -- because I get bored and all kinds of Chatty Cathy before my free nights and weekends begin. And I've done all this because your coverage is superb. Everywhere I go, in five different cities, I have coverage. Everywhere. Out in the toolie-berries where my parents live. Bargain basements in Boston. Concrete bunkers in the valleys of Seattle. In small, hole-in-the-wall restaurants where NONE of my friends have ever had coverage, I still get the super-important texts about where everyone is going to meet up later to drink and dance.

Sure, your customer service is run by sadistic monkeys who only hire mental patients with bad attitudes and not enough medication. Sure, there have been grievous billing errors that have taken up to seven months to correct. Yes, you even charged my recurring payment three times one month, making me end up having to pay a $34 overdraft charge on a $2 parking meter charge because I foolishly thought the $100 in my account would get me through the 24 hours until payday and so didn't transfer money from savings that day. And I had to badger you into giving me the discount I deserved as a LOYAL FUCKING CUSTOMER when I needed to replace the aforementioned high-diving phone three weeks after signing a new two-year contract with you asshats.

So, now, how have you repaid my unswerving, irrational and pointless loyalty? Somehow, you've decided to make your coverage suck at the least opportune times known to man. First, I'm expecting a very important call for a contract position I'm supposed to start next week. The phone is in the optimal location for reception and convenience, and I'm sitting patiently on my couch. Not making sudden movements, nor wrapping my walls with copper wire and aluminum foil. My phone never rings. Fifteen minutes after the scheduled time, my voicemail indicator alerts me to a new voicemail. The gentleman called on time, and my phone never rang. When we finally connect on the phone, I am standing OUTSIDE ON MY BALCONY in the FREEZING COLD WIND, while it starts to rain, and halfway through our conversation my phone DROPS THE SIGNAL!

This is it, Sprint, I'm done. I'll be sprinting to the nearest iPhone or Google Android retail location as soon as my contract ends at the end of next month. My Christmas gift to you will be NOT shoving my piece of crap phone and every Sprint bill I've ever paid up some unlucky employee's ass the next time I walk by your store.

Heavily editedly yours,
A no-longer loyal customer.

Share the Road

On a recent drive down a winding, hilly road at night, I had to folow a cyclist with his little flashing red light.  He was mid-lane so I had to find an appropriate place to pass him.  The curves and hills in the road made it difficult to see on-coming cars, even at night.  There was ample berm for him to move over, but alas, he was forcing me to share the road.  Eventually I was able to complete the pass.

A mile or so down the road, there is a "T" interesection with a lane to turn in either direction.  I was moving to the right lane when, from my right side-view mirror, I see this asshole passing me and everyone else on the right.  I nearly hit him since his cool little bikey-wikey doesn't have a headlamp, only a tail light so I didn't see the idiot passing me illegally on the right.  I had to swerve back to the left to avoid hitting the muther.  He also disregarded that red light and continued on his ignorant, merry, fuck y'all way.

I tend to get an attitude when I see these "Share the road" signs because of asswipes like this guy...and there are plenty just like him.  I wouldn't really feel too bad if I found out he suffered a nasty case of road rash on his arrogant, spandex-covered ass.

THE WORST NEWS EVER

When I switched roles at work a couple months ago, I switched desks as well. The best part about that was moving away from the farter. (I complained about him much more on Twitter than I did here.) I just heard the worst news ever. Not only is that foul creature moving over here, but he will be sitting even closer to me than before. I seriously want to cry.

Douchey Costumes

Does anyone else get Trick or Treaters coming to their door dressed in jeans and a hoodie?  With a plastic bag from the grocery store in which to collect candy?  I so want to tell them off but I am afraid of getting my house burnt to the ground so I just smile and chirpily say "Happy Halloween" as I hand them the shitty candy I saved just for them.

And also, I hate forgetting.

I forgot that I am under contractual obligation to provide you fine readers with priceless, painful, punny, peevish posts.

I also forgot to deposit my paycheck, to mail that birthday card, to throw away the rotten lettuce on trash day, that meeting thing I had RSVP'd to attend, and my best friend's wedding anniversary.

Why did you ask?

I hate it when an IVR system asks for an account number "to expedite assistance" and then when I get a real person on the phone they ask for the same damn information.   

My State Sucks!

Dear Pennsylvania:

You're the only state in the U.S. without an approved budget.

People who work for not-for-profit service agencies are losing their jobs. For three months, funding for state-dependent agencies has been undetermined. This means they can't provide services to the homeless, the hungry, the art-starved, the kids who need extra care. Libraries are shutting down. Programs for people with disabilities are being eliminated. Who the fuck wants to move here, now?

I'm not sure how many more letters we need to write, how many more rallies we need to organize to just git-r-done but this is embarassing. I know most of you elected people just want table games in our new casinos, so shit or get off that pot (even though that's not going to fix it.)  Put more tax on liquor and cigarettes and Ding Dongs, I don't care, just fucking get your shit together before it gets even more disastrous. 

Sincerely,

I pay taxes and I pay your fucking salary

Delay Of Game

My favorite sports team of all time, the Buffalo Sabres, began their regular season Saturday night.  Now they don't play again until Thursday.  Thursday.  It's like some sort of tease.  Between now and April they have to fit in 82 games plus a 12 day break for the Olympics, but somehow they get a 4 day break after the first game of the year?  Way to kill my buzz, schedule monkeys.

I had a lovely dinner tonight....

...that is, until I went to drive home from taking my dad out for dinner (it was his 70th birthday yesterday) and I saw this jackass on not one - but two - enormous motherfucking billboards on the way home.

He is everywhere!

UPS Strikes Again!

i come home tonight after volunteering and find a slip on the far side of the front door indicating that UPS attempted to deliver my package.  There's all sorts of scribbles on it and I finally discern it was the 3rd attempt.  When was attempt one and two I ponder.  I go online to see when the alleged attempts one and two happened.  What do I see? 

1. This was the first attempt to deliver the package.
2. There's a delivery exception.

3. The delivery exception is because the customer requested to go pick up the package.  I'm the fucking customer.  I'm 100% certain I did not request to go pick up the goddamn package. 

I have no idea who the fucking driver talked to but I am livid.  This is not the first time I have had trouble with UPS and I'm sure it won't be the last as long as I live in this building.  But given that usually UPS ground packages can be left (Amazon's packages get left all the time) I can't imagine why there is so much drama.  Damn UPS.

My Husband's Peeve

My husband types and thinks in all-caps and without punctuation, so this is written in his voice.

FUCKIN RAIN IS GOING TO RUIN MY JERSEY SHORE VACATION AND I ONLY GET ONE VACATION PER YEAR AND THIS IS IT AND I HATE RIDING MY MOTORCYCLE IN THE RAIN MY LIFE SUCKS

Believe it or not, I'm the optimist of the relationship.

Suck it, Time Warner

Time Warner sucks it so bad, I could kill someone. There are not enough bullet points in the world to list off the ways in which they suck.

Long Tale With A Test At The End

I hired a couple of college-bound young people to help me do yard work. 

I've known these kids for a few years, and I've worked with them at other places, and I've worked with their parents. One day they were bellyaching about needing money for school and I was bitching about my yard work. So a light bulb flashed and I offered, "I'll pay you 15 bucks an hour to weed and mulch." They were down with that.  They'd done it at their own homes. I told them we'd work in four hour shifts, and if they could fit it in they could even do two shifts, work all day. They replied, "Score!" which I think means good. 

They showed up and started working, with me alongside to direct where to put stuff and set the pace.  I was ready to dig all day and really get some shit done. It was fun, chattering and playing in the dirt. After 2 hours, they needed a break so I brought out fruit and breadstuff and drinks because of course they didn't bring anything and apparently I'm a 1950s housewife. Then they decided they were done for the day. 

The next date, same thing, of course while checking their Blackberries the entire time. The following appointment, they showed up an hour late and stayed for 90 minutes. Today I texted them, "Are you interested in coming over and earning more duckets, or whatever you kids say?" and they were all excited. But it's been like pulling stubborn dandelions to get them to commit.

Is this what kids are like today?  Totally short attention spans, lack of real initiative, unprepared?  If it were me wanting cash for college, I'd be begging for this work. It's not hard, they can work on their tans, they don't have to deal with cranky customers, and it pays better than their other jobs.  And I'm freakin' fun to work with, you couldn't ask for a better boss lady (ha, ha.)

My neighbors are jealous.  They say, "It's amazing that you got young people to actually work."  And I was all, really?  Because they're kinda pissing me off. Are my expectations too high?  It's me, isn't it?

Peevery feedback needed, please. 

A Peeve-Tastic Day

Too many to choose just one:

• Daughter has the flu and spent the night in my bed with a bucket
• She hasn't eaten anything to bring up, so she dry heaved every hour all night
• I'm running on 1.5 hours of decent sleep
• I won't be able to hold my new niece or nephew for days because of the germs I might be harboring
• Hard to not worry about this damn flu craziness when your child has the flu
• I have to work tonight instead of doing the other 5 gazillion things that need to be done here
• My neighbors are assholes
• I won't see my mom for Mother's Day because she can't travel and now I can't either
• Waaah
• Boo
• Hoo
• Woe
• Is
• Me

I Can't See Clearly Now

I have just acquired a big honkin' new scratch on my glasses.  Right in my normal line of vision.  Annoying as hell.  Worst part is that I'm going on vacation a week from today...not enough time to get new lenses.  Fuck me.

Butt Crack of Dawn

It irks the hell out of me that the  night before my day off I'm ready for bed early and then am up before the sun comes up when I could be sleeping in.  A very bad habit I need to break, one of many.

I Will Go Nuke-U-Lar On You

The word is "Library," not "Liberry."  What's worse, you put the accent on the "berry" so it sounds like "Lie-BERRY."  Like fingernails on a chalkboard!

Flipping and Flopping and Flipping Out

For a solid week, I was feeling good about being a non-smoker.   I was feeling sorry for people that smoke and feeling empowered because I wasn't smoking.  Today, I am longingly staring at people holding cigarettes and am jealous of them. 

As if that isn't enough anxiety,  Typepad goes and freaks me right the fuck out.

One Secret Revealed!

It feels like I posted about my secrets a hundred years ago, but it was only five weeks ago. Well, one secret was about work and the announcement of that was delayed and delayed and then delayed some more. It finally came out today, so I can tell you my secret. My boss was moved over to another group and I am now in charge of my entire team and the entire web site we work on and the entire redesign project for said web site which is launching next year. Not that it means a whole lot to you, but it was KILLING ME to keep that secret. My part is actually pretty small compared all the rest of the stuff with my (former) boss's part. Anyway, yay for me.

The other secret, I still have to keep that one for awhile, probably until next month. I hate having secrets!

Jen's Peeve of the Day - Friday

Today's Peeve:  I work out of town Monday through Thursday and I do my best to stock the fridge on the weekends so that my family can eat while I am gone.  So, you can imagine how crazy it makes me to come home and find rotting food in the refrigerator EVERY THURSDAY.  I am so done with grocery shopping.  Fuck it.  Eat out every goddamn day, or starve.  See if I care.

No he didn't.

I can't believe I wasted all that time taking classes like Educational Psychology, Perspectives on American Education, and Curriculum Development when I could have simply joined the Army to be a better teacher. Suck it, McCain.

Keeping Secrets is Hard

I have secrets. I have to keep them. One I have to keep for about two weeks. One I have to keep for a long time! I don't like having secrets.

Dang Those Drugs!!

I get all logged in here and I forget what I was gonna write!

Rough Riding

The use of food/ride tickets at local festivals already ranks near the top of my peeve list. Topping that, however, would be seeing the sign on each ride announcing the number of tickets needed and trying to find a ticket booth for half an hour only to be told there isn't one because all rides are cash.

Living to Work

I need more time in my life. My work schedule is kicking my ass, my workload at home is kicking my ass and I didn't get to see ONE soccer game that my son played in for the whole season. Mother of the Year award should be showing up at my door any day now. Mostly, I just need a fucking haircut and I have no time.

Our busiest hours are between 11:30am and 1:30pm

I'm working from home this week (well, make that 'working' from home) which means that I did not have to get my ass on an early plane to Philadelphia on Monday.  Yesterday, I 'worked' from home - meaning I did laundry and took a nap and watched an old TiVo'd movie.  Today, I really needed to do work so after I dropped the boy at school, I went to my local Panera.  Do you have Panera Bread where you live?  Well, they SUCK.  All of a sudden, they have instituted this lame policy where they boot you off their wifi connection after only 30 minutes, if it's lunchtime hours.

So now, I'm in the mall food court, sitting across from the Tijuana Taco stand, working but trying to ignore the nachos calling my name.

Locals

To: The people moving here from out of state

From: Those of us who have been here for several generations

Re: Your disgust with our area, lack of entertainment and public schools

You have two choices:

A. Get the fuck out

B. Shut the fuck up

I'm Looking at You

I love me a good devil's advocate, really, I do. I welcome having an intelligent conversation with someone who might see things differently than I do. I actually enjoy learning someone's point of view on a subject that I may have overlooked. That being said, don't you just want to strangle those people who have to argue every. single. thing. that every single person says, no matter what the subject? Like they have a Masters degree in EVERYTHING? Those know-it-all people can suck it.

Primary...or Secondary?

The State of California just had a political primary a few months ago. Now I'm getting mail for another primary in June for a bunch of judges and other politicos, most of whom are running unopposed, plus a couple of Propositions. Can someone explain why we are having another primary? The state has no money. They are talking about adding new taxes. And yet, they schedule two primaries just a few months apart. So now they have to print all this literature (and I usually get like five different booklets before the election), mail them, and pay people to work the polling places. Did any of the geniuses who run this state think, hey, why don't we have just one primary and put all the elections together? Am I missing something?

I'm talking to you, Marlboro Man

If I see one more person butt their cigarette out on the ground and leave it or throw their cigarette butt out the car window, I'm going to lose my mind. The earth is not an ashtray. It's like throwing any other piece of garbage on the ground or out the window and that is not cool.

Maybe It'll Improve if Microsoft Takes Over-Bwaahaha!

PM's peeve below about Yahoo mail reminded me of a peeve that I've just experienced again with Yahoo's new, "improved" My Yahoo page. I like to keep up to date on sports scores so I will refresh the page to get the latest score. Except that oftentimes instead of an updated score, it reverts back to the time before the freaking games even started and they are all in "preview" mode. And no matter how many times I refresh, clear the cache, it never goes back to the current scores. I know we'd all like to turn back the clock every once in awhile, but this is ridiculous.

Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!

When asking friends to help you move here are three things to remember:

1. Pack your shit into boxes before we arrive.

2. If it snowed out the night before, shovel the walk. No one wants the guilt of sliding on ice and smashing your grandmother's good china.

3. Carry some stuff yourself. It makes us want to kill you less when you forget items one and two.

Neat Invention, those Garbage Disposals

Last night I had some friends over for the Oscars. One of my biggest peeves is when people throw food in the trash can instead of leaving everything in the sink. Since I am one person, my trash can doesn't fill up fast enough to have food rotting in it. It's one thing if I serve using paper plates. Then it can all go in the trash and it fills up fast. But otherwise I have a garbage disposal that enjoys being fed.

Coming Out of the Dark

To say the last two and a half years have been extremely difficult is an understatement. Having my best friend suddenly stricken with brain cancer, taking care of him, then losing him way too soon. Getting laid off with no warning and twenty minutes notice. Taking a job so miserable I quit after three weeks. Followed by a temporary contract position that, while it would keep getting extended, the worry was always wondering if I would be working in a couple of weeks. So this week, with two new job offers, my social networking website (link to come soon) about a month from public beta release, and some new investment opportunities on the horizon, I'm feeling like things are finally turning around. So what's my peeve? Why did it have to take so fucking long!

Recruitment Strategy

I have started to write a book and am devoting an entire chapter to job recruiters. There may be some good ones out there, but I have yet to find one. I met with a company today through a recruiter. Said recruiter neglected to tell me that he had altered my resume. So like on any job interview, I bring a copy of my resume and include it with an application. This recruiter had taken out the additional experience section without telling me. Yes, it is unrelated to the specific job, but it shows a well-rounded person with outside interests, something I look for when I hire people. The guys with whom I met said they were glad I gave them my copy because the resume from the recruiter had them concerned that I would be such a dry person that I wouldn't fit in with the company. Why do recruiters feel that anything extraneous should be removed from a resume? What a freaking moron!

The Worst, Fattest, Ugliest, Unfriendliest Magazine List

I subscribe to a lot of magazines as previously noted:

I have now decided that to cut down on subscriptions, any magazine that publishes another freaking City list, the subscription will be canceled. Which city is happiest, fattest, least friendly, ugliest, healthiest, blah, blah, blah. They are so moronic and magazines that do this deserve to end up on the list of magazines that are circling the drain.

Artistic Expression

I was planning to see the movie Cloverfield until I heard all the stories about people getting sick from the herky-jerky camera movements. I am one of these people that get sick from watching these types of movies and TV shows, so I won't see the movie now. I really don't understand this. Do directors think this makes their films more hip, more cool? Is it an ego thing? It's still the story, idiots. Tell a good, engaging story and keep the damn cameras still.

Needle in a CD Stack

I have a song from my CD collection I want to add to my iPod. So I open up the jewel case and the wrong damn CD is in there. "No problem," I surmise. I must have accidentally switched them. I open the other jewel case and it's freaking empty! Where the hell could this CD have gone? This is worse than losing a sock in the dryer!

Riddle

Q. What do this peeve and my secret santa gift have in common?

A. They're both way overdue.

P.S. It's wrong to post about it here when I'm 99% sure the sender never mailed it, and I have a good inkling she reads this, right?

Peeves of Yore: January 4th Edition

Did you make New Year's resolutions? Looks like no one around here did this year, or any year in the past.

Last year, I posted the favorite peeves of 2006. It is like looking in a mirror reflected in a mirror reflected in a mirror...

Two years ago, Joanne grew a third eye.

Three years ago, Michael lost his virginity.

Four years ago, Joanne made a horrible discovery in the shower.

Five years ago, I was looking for a new job but I guess that didn't pan out since I started this job four years ago.