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Thursday 28 April 2011

Five Things that Annoy Me...

Two of my three books arrived today, thus making me very happy in the kind of way that only a bibliophile* can be. This makes this post somewhat odd because I am not really annoyed, though give me a few hours of customer service work and I probably will be.

Anyway, here is my list of bugbears...**

Bad Spelling (As in extremely bad)
First, I make mistakes, everyone does because we read so fast and so on. I find mistakes in novels occasionally and they are honest mistakes. What I don't like is spelling like this - Todae iz Frydae or get owta dis etc. I don't have the time or patience to figure out what you are trying to say. I can't stand it and there is no excuse on Earth for this. In fact I remove people from my friends list who constantly type like that. They are also the kind of people to go on about bad reality TV shows.

Lack of Manners
I was always told that manners were free but around here many people have not heard of them. Or, if they have, they don't use them. I was raised to say please and thank you but, apparently, I was born in the wrong era. I have refused to serve children who don't say please or thank you. You don't need to say both, though it would be nice. I have dealt with adults who come into the shop, basically throw their cash or ATM card at me and point or grunt. I'm sorry, that is plain rude. And, to those adults out there who don't use these basic words, I should not have to prompt you to be polite...

Impatient People
True story - I was working in a book store a few years ago and it was December. (Or Retail Hell Month as I like to call it.) Anyway, there was a line of customers in the store and, with every checkout open, we were trying to get through the customers in an orderly fashion. Just as this elderly woman was about to place her stuff on my counter this middle aged 'business woman' pushed in front and dumped a small pile of stuff on the counter.
Now, the line was quite obvious and we had extra staff on to make things go as smoothly as possible so I turned to this woman and, very politely, informed her that there was a line and the lady behind her was actually next. This woman then gives me a look that, I swear, would have made the devil think twice but I was holding my ground. She storms to the back of the line and I continue to serve this elderly lady, who was very polite and thanked me very much.
Not even two minutes later Rude Customer is at my neighbour's counter and the entire time she is swearing at me, seriously. She demands to speak to my manager because I was being so rude by making her stand in line. I was surprised she didn't pull the whole 'don't you know who I am' routine. Thankfully there were many witnesses and all of them vouched for me, including the elderly customer. Still, that woman ruined my day.

People Who Push their Beliefs on Me
I don't care if you choose to believe in God, the flying spaghetti monster or the freaking muffin man. Really, I couldn't give a rat's... It is entirely your own choice but it is also your choice to not push your beliefs on me. I'm more than happy to have a discussion or even a heated debate about religion or whatever but the minute you tell me I'm going to hell/purgatory or wherever because I don't believe in something is the minute that I rethink our 'friendship'. I know this sounds harsh but how many of you welcome in Jehovah Witnesses etc. Also, if you start telling me that man and dinosaurs walked together I'm going to start questioning what you've been eating/smoking/reading ... just saying.

People Who Choose to Remain Ignorant
I'm not going to apologise. There is no excuse anymore to remain ignorant. I don't know everything, nobody can but that doesn't mean that I can't continue to learn or broaden my horizons, so to say. And I am only talking about those who choose to remain this way.

Gosh, the last couple of posts have just been about me complaining. Tell you one thing though, writing it down has made me feel better. I promise tomorrow that the posts will become a lot more cheerful. Also, I hope I haven't made any serious spelling errors...eek.

So, what are your bugbears?

*I wonder if they will change the spelling of this as well. When I was in high school they changed the spelling of Sulphur to Sulfur but it has never looked right to me.

**Does anyone else get an image of a caterpillar and a bear joined together to make a bugbear? No? Just me? Oh well...

2 comments:

  1. These are all on my list as well, especially numbers 2 and 4. I'm also not a fan of excessive body odor. Actually, make that ANY body odor.

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  2. That almost made it onto the list. Excessive body odor...just wrong. Especially when you are short of stature and you use public transport.

    ReplyDelete