Category Archives: What Annoys Jeff this Week?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. As I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, I couldn’t help but observe one of my fellow patients, a full gown adult woman, who had kicked off her shoes and was “sitting” with her feet all over the damned chair. Maybe it shouldn’t have filled me with absolute burning rage, but it did. I don’t appear out in the world very often so I can’t exactly pinpoint when adult humans completely lost the thread about how to behave in public, but I’m sure this small incident was just a symptom of a broader problem both with the individual and with the wider society. I’m trying to imagine a situation where I’d be comfortable taking off my shoes and putting my feet all over God knows what. Maybe I should just be happy she managed to change out of her pajamas before she left her house. I’d question whether I could set the bar for decent behavior any lower, but we all know there’s obviously no lower limit to what people will do if they have no personal sense of dignity, decorum nor propriety and there are no obvious consequences for shit behavior.

2. Spam texts. My phone is currently being overrun with spam text messages. I’m getting a dozen or more of them a day. Is it the Russians trying to do a bit of fundraising? Don’t know. Don’t care. The first person to devise a way to get it to stop and keep it stopped should get $1 Billion tax free and the chance to sleep with the damned prom queen.

3. Gutters. I have them cleaned religiously every year. I have leaf guards installed. I’ve even had the pitch corrected on a couple of sections. Somehow, they continue to clog on what I can only call a regular basis. Two or three times a year I can count on water shooting off the roof and cascading down the outside of the house. It happens almost invariable after spending hundreds of dollars doing spring prep and therefore has the added perk of washing out some significant section of fresh mulch. Short of hiring someone to clean the gutters as often as some people hire people to clean their homes, I’m quickly running out of good ideas to mitigate this particular joy of home ownership.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Coffee, black. I had blood work done this week and received instructions not to eat or drink anything prior to the appointment. Black coffee was excepted. I appreciate that I was allowed to get caffeinated and avoid the inevitable withdrawal headache, but honestly, even good black coffee is bad. I’m sorry, it just is. I mean I don’t want 10 times more cream in my go juice than coffee or anything, but I like it to come to a nice deep tan before pouring it down my gullet. I know there will be a chorus of “real coffee lovers drink it black,” well, you’re welcome to your bitter bean water, but I’m going to insist on something more civilized.

2. Hand wringing about corporate profits. “But companies are posting record profits,” they whine. Yes, they are…. and those companies are going to do things like invest in their infrastructure, identify growth opportunities, and return a big slice of that profit to their shareholders through increased value or directly by issuing dividends. If you follow the average news report you could be forgiven for thinking “shareholder” is just another word for the evil 1%. In reality, of course, shareholders reflect every single American who has a 401k, or an IRA, or a Health Savings Account, a 529 plan, or yes, even one of those old school union-backed pension plans. Big corporate profits are a good news story for the 55%+ of the population who have invested for their future. Sorry, but in a free market I’ll just never see businesses making a profit as anything but a good news story.

3. Anti-streaming. Look, if you’re going to have people schlep to the office and spend eight hours there doing work that they could be doing from the comfort and convenience of their own homes, the least you can do is unblock some music streaming options so we can make an honest effort at ignoring those inane conversations going on around us. Unless, of course, sitting around listening in on six conversations at once is the “organizational culture” it’s so important to preserve. I mean I know there are people who really dig being in the office, but I can’t for a moment imagine why. There’s not a single thing there that works better than its counterpart in my home office… myself included.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Forty minutes. I overslept by 40 minutes. I know that doesn’t sound like much – and it isn’t in this work from home environment where I regularly climb out of bed two hours before I need to sign on for the day. It is, however, just enough time shaved off the morning to make me feel like I’m running behind for the rest of the day. So, sure, I’m marginally more rested but carrying around loads of extra angst while spending the day trying to shave minutes and seconds off everything and get back to baseline so I don’t feel like I’ve squandered the day when it comes time to lay my head down again.

2. Reminders. I have an appointment with my doctor on Friday. I know I have this appointment because when I made it, I tapped it into my calendar and set a reminder. To the best of my knowledge, even in the time before electronic, handheld calendars when everything was written on paper, I never missed or even found myself late for an appointment with my doctor. I’d even be comfortable extending that to pretty much any appointment I’ve ever made as a grown adult. If I tell you I’m going to be there, I’ll be there. On the rare occasion where it hasn’t been possible to keep an appointment, I’ve cancelled as soon as I knew there was an unavoidable conflict. My doctor’s office, however, seems to think I’m the most ragingly incompetent adult who has every shuffled through life. So far in the last seven days I’ve received three text messages and an email imploring me to remember that I have this appointment. I’m trying to remember that this is probably just a reflection of the general public being barely able to dress and feed themselves without assistance. Honestly, I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse about the situation.

3. The Gas Rebate Act of 2022. Proposed before the U.S. House of Representatives is the Gas Rebate Act of 2022. As proposed, it would send $100 to every American (plus an additional $100 per dependent) each month that the price of gasoline exceeds $4.00 a gallon. Maybe I truly am just one of the olds now, but I distinctly remember a time in America where we expected to need to pay our own way in life. That seems to have gone out of fashion with the bailout of homeowners who over-mortgaged themselves in the early 2000s and has only accelerated in the Plague Era when rent and mortgage payments could be suspended completely while Uncle sent out round after round of cash money “just because.” I increasingly feel like a real sucker – over here paying my own bills and seeing the obscene amount of money being taxed away every year so I can pay for other people’s goddamned gasoline too. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Flossing. I have a hate/hate relationship with flossing. I hate doing it and no matter how gentle I try to be or which kind of floss I use, it always ends up with blood.. and occasionally a crown falling off. In the interest of at least trying to comply with the spirit of my dentist’s request to floss regularly, I’ve worked a water pick into the daily routine. At least it’s never pulled a crown off one of my teeth and the bleeding happens far less often… Although Tuesday night the sink took on the appearance of a crime scene, so maybe it’s not an all that much better solution.

2. Computers. I got a new computer this week. Well, not me, exactly. Uncle got a new computer that he’s assigned to me. The jury is still out on whether it will be any better than the broken down old laptop from 2017 that it’s replacing. I suppose if it manages to consistently boot up from a cold start in anything less than two hours, it’s got to be considered progress. Still, that’s a long way off from being a snappy new machine. No matter how new, it’ll be crippled with whatever “basic load” of software our IT boffins think is necessary to protect us from the enemy and ourselves… and it’ll still be a wildly frustrating piece of equipment to use.

3. Limitations. It’s been an awfully long time since I sat in on ECON 101 or 102. They were requirements for a social science major. I did well enough in them, but God knows I’d never consider myself an economist. I’m pretty good at picking up on basic concepts, though, when conversations turn to commodities pricing, interest rates, and the state of S&P 500. If I put in a little effort, I can mostly follow along with the reasons why they rise and fall and even grasp a few of the implications that might follow on. I do, however, realize my limitations. Having an opinion is a fine thing. Sharing it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But it’s really a crying shame that more people on the internet don’t seem to have any sense of their own intellectual limits.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The United Nations. According to reports, the UN press office has instructed staff not to call the current Russian war against Ukraine a “war” or “conflict.” I’m sure somewhere, somehow the UN manages to do something useful, but I’m equally sure this ain’t it. Having spent the last two decades in the belly of one of the world’s great bureaucracies, I know ass covering when I see it. It’s not surprising from an organization that continues to allow Russia to chair the Security Council while simultaneously committing countless war crimes against clear and obvious civilian targets. It’s not surprising, but it’s damned well disappointing. 

2. Our Arab allies. Leaders of both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have refused phone calls from the President of the United States in recent weeks. These “allies” of ours are quick enough to pick up the receiver whenever the need to re-up an order of military hardware or need a big bad superpower to keep their neighbor in line. When the issue is opening up the spigot and pumping some more oil, tough, we’re met with a deafening silence. If we had any sense as a country it’s the kind of thing we’d remember and exact a price for the next time our allies need spare parts for their fancy American fighter jets.

3. Off ramps. The Twitter space is filled with voices calling for the world to find an “off ramp” for Vlad the Invader. The world, they say, needs to give Vlad a way to back away without smelling like he’s fallen directly through the outhouse floor. I’m sorry. No. Vlad needs to put his tail between his legs and slink back to Moscow having been bled militarily by a country he assumed would roll over and crippled financially by a resolute western alliance. The world will get far better terms once he squeals than if he’s allowed to thump his chest and claim some sort of victory no matter how pyric. Treat him like North Korea’s glorious leaders – put him in a box and mostly ignore him. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Sleep. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of sleep. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that its hours of the day being utterly wasted laying around when I’d rather have my nose in a book, or honestly be doing almost anything else. The only virtue sleep seems to have, apart from it being a physiological necessity, is that at least I’m not consciously aware of the hours passing. I at least appreciate that the time from closing my eyes to them popping open again feels nearly instantaneous… so it doesn’t feel like totally wasted hours in the moment. That would just be adding insult to injury.

2. Communication. One of the constants across my career has been the frequency with which we fail to communicate. Vertically, laterally, inside, outside – where the communication is supposed to be happening doesn’t make much difference. The only thing consistent is that the left and right hand are almost universally unaware about what the other is up to. It would almost be fun to watch if it wasn’t so often just a enormous pain in the ass leading to endlessly repeating the same thing to 47 different people.

3. The “working lunch.” At the risk of reinforcing my reputation as generally incorrigible about such things, let me go on record as saying I don’t believe in the concept of the working lunch. There’s work and then there’s non-work (like lunch). I know this is true because my regularly scheduled weekday is 8.5 hours in length. That extra on half hour is tacked on because of the expectation that somewhere in the middle of the day, we’re supposed to “take lunch.” If that weren’t the case, I’d be happy to forgo the break and end the day 30 minutes earlier. No matter how much the powers that be wish it was otherwise, throwing some lukewarm pizza in a conference room while having a full-on meeting will never count in my mind as taking lunch – otherwise known as a pause to let your mind reset and take a breath before diving in for the last half of the day. If you’re going to do it, at least have the personal courage to call it what it is – a meeting where we’ll give you a slice of pizza in hopes that you won’t realize we’ve snuck an extra 30 minutes of work into your day. Personally, I’ll always recognize it for what it is.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. “Don’t Say Gay” Bill. Ah, Florida. How is it not surprising that it’s Florida? Let me be blunt here: Some guys like dick. Some girls don’t. Pretending that simple fact goes away because legislation prevents people from mentioning it is ludicrous. Not “agreeing” with someone else’s lifestyle isn’t sufficient reason for the state to censor them. Your flavor of religion calling something sin isn’t sufficient reason for the state to censor them. Getting up in your feelings because someone says words that make you sad isn’t sufficient reason for the state to censor them. I wish to hell these right-wing snowflakes would try reading the Constitution instead of just wrapping themselves up in it like day old fish. 

2. Intellectual inconsistency. A year ago, there was a group Black Lives Matter activists who, on several occasions, blocked up traffic in North East, Maryland. The local Facebook groups raged about them hindering commerce, being a danger to public safety, and generally being a pain in the ass to anyone just trying to get home from work while they filled the crosswalk. Now that same Facebook group is cheering wildly for the Canadian truckers blocking off whole interstates and downtowns. The truckers, of course, are heroic freedom fighters. Intellectual consistency is far too big an ask in our dumb 21st century. Personally, I think the worst way to convince people of the rightness of your cause is by making a general nuisance of yourself. It’s a stupid way of trying to win over people who largely don’t give a single shit about what you want them to care about. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to me if you’re BLM, a bunch of Canadian truck drivers, or the inevitable Americans who decide we need our own road closing protests. If I had my way, we’d read out the Riot Act and clear the rabble so the rest of us could continue on with our business. On that position, I’m absolutely consistent.

3. Taxes. I’m beginning to assemble the sea of paperwork required each year to file my taxes. The sheer complexity of it, even while filing single, is probably more rage inducing than annoying if I’m honest. This is just the grievance before I even find out the total butcher’s bill for 2021. I’m not one of the oddball “taxation is theft” types. I like living in a country whose military has more bits and bobs than the next ten countries on the list… combined. For now, it’s just the fact that I have 20 or more bits of paper (with more yet to come in), that all need to be coordinated before I can even send the whole mess off to the guy who actually understands how it’s all supposed to fit together and save me from handing over one more thin dime than is legally required.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Rabbit holes. I’ve lived these last 43 years without ever needing much more than my regular checkups and copays. Despite that, I recently went down an internet rabbit hole reading about my insurance plan’s catastrophic health coverage and how to avoid out-of-network charges. I mean it’s nice to know and surely will come in useful someday, but there’s an hour or two of my week I’ll never get back.

2. Normal. Turn to any news provider and you’re bound to hear stories about “getting back to normal” or “the new normal” or “life after COIVD” or “life with COVID.” Most of those stories turn on the same general theme of wanting something analogous to pre-pandemic life to return as close to immediately as possible. Personally, I’m in no rush… although that could be because most of what I’ve enjoyed during the Great Plague are the same things I enjoyed doing back in the Before Times. The only significant change I’ll notice in getting to whatever “normal” looks like in the future will be inevitably spending more time commuting and sitting in a cubicle. If you’re waiting on me to do handsprings about that kind of normal, it’s like you don’t even know me.

3. Mud. I plant grass seed in the back yard every spring and fall. Jorah, on the other hand, spends all four seasons doing his best to turn everything inside the fence line into a sodden morass. It’s not entirely his fault. The soil is thin and surprisingly bad – mostly clay and rocky – so what grows there doesn’t grow thick. Being a deeply shaded area, at least a third of the green is moss rather than grass. The minute it’s disturbed, it opens a gash and mud ensues. I only bring it up because his favorite thing to do on rainy days is go every outside at full speed kicking up mud like some kind of teenaged bubba with a lifted F-150. That’s fine outside, I suppose, but it’s current on him, the floors, a couple of walls, and a bit of the ceiling from when he had a good shake. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Schedule. I’m deep in the weeds of designing a schedule for a three-day event where, at best, there’s one day of real content. The inevitable result will be a proposal that nobody likes – but that everyone will eventually go along with because no one else wants to come up with a better alternative. It’s just another week in the belly of the bureaucracy as an event planner, I suppose. Thank God there’s no real-world events taking place globally that would be a better place to allocate limited time and effort.

2. Joe Biden. I get it, he’s not Don Trump. At some point, though, that has to stop being enough reason to give the guy a pass. I never had particularly high expectations for a Biden Administration, but setting aside our policy disagreements on the proper role and function of the federal government, the first year has been less successful than even I expected. From the bungled evacuation of Afghanistan to rampaging inflation to failure to ramp up testing for COVID, most of what’s come out of the White House in the last 365 days has felt botched in many greater or lesser ways. Maybe it’s just me, but I expected more polish and poise from an administration who are largely old hands inside the beltway.

3. Google. About a decade ago, I set up a “Gmail for Your Domain” account to support jeffreytharp.com. It gave me up to 50 “branded” email address overlayed on the gmail.com platform and some other nice integration features. At the basic tier, that was a “free” service provided by Google (presumably for giving them the right to data mine your various inboxes). For a long time, it’s been a totally painless experience. They’ve just announced the end of this as a free service and now I have to decide if $6 a month is enough of an annoyance and pain point to motivate me to find an alternative and migrate to it between now and May 1st. Otherwise it’s a matter of abandoning tens of thousands of emails and other records in place and starting fresh with a new provider. Stupid Sophie’s choice.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Logging in. When I boot up my work computer in the morning, I have to log in using my access card and PIN. When I log into Outlook, I use my access card and PIN. One Drive? Access card and PIN. Teams. One more time, log in with access card and PIN. Just to start the day I have to log in using the same credentials four to five times depending what opens on startup. I’m sure there’s some important network security reason this is necessary, but it feels dumb and is 100% a daily irritant. 

2. Upgraded masks. For the last two years, I’ve survived plague free by 1) being vaccinated and boosted, 2) generally avoiding people as much as practical and 3) wearing a standard cloth face covering whenever I had to go into a questionable indoor environment. It hasn’t felt like all that big an ask. With the latest variant, word has gone out that it’s advised to switch over to more robust masks – primarily N95 or KN95 style respirators. That’s well and good, but I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of money so far on various upgraded masks and a host of add on extenders, inserts, and other bits to get a better fit. So far, no combination of any of them has given me a mask that doesn’t immediately blow hot air around my nose and cheeks and turning my glasses into a solid wall of fog sitting on the end of my nose. Not falling victim to the Great Plague is important, but if I can’t be both maximally protected and fog-free, I’m going to have to err on the side of being able to see what the hell I’m doing when I need to leave the house.

3. Maryland’s Republican governor has proposed eliminating taxes on retirees as a means to discourage people from spending their working lives here and then immediately decamping for jurisdictions that don’t tax retirement income. For those who will face a potential tax bill from Maryland when they retire, it has to be a consideration. For instance, if you have the longevity to enjoy a 20-year retirement and the state reaches into your pocket to the tune of $4,000 a year, that’s upwards of $80,000 you’re leaving on the table for the convenience of not moving to a more tax friendly state. That’s not the kind of win the Democratic controlled general assembly will want to hand a popular Republican governor. Given Maryland’s historic love of raising taxes on its residents, it’s not the kind of thing they’d want to do if there the governor was a Democrat, either. I’m an unabashed lover of my native state, and I’d love to be able to make a plan to stay here along the shores of the Chesapeake forever, but unless our fearless leaders end up endorsing a plan like this, finances are all too likely to dictate otherwise when the time comes.