Category Archives: What Annoys Jeff this Week?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Failure to RtGE. If you’re attending an event and the people (person) responsible for planning it send you a confirmation message, it might be helpful to go ahead and Read the Goddamned Email. You never know, it might just be filled with all manner of helpful information, links, instructions, and answers to all the questions your apparently illiterate ass would rather jam my inbox and voicemail with asking individually. At most, I’m just going to forward the email that you already have. At worst I’m going to ignore you. It depends entirely on my mood.

2. Door slammers. I’ve always been under the impression that when you’re exiting an auditorium it’s basically common decency to make sure the door doesn’t slam behind you. Particularly when you’ve been there for a few hours and certainly have heard the thunderous clanging the door makes when it slams shut. Or maybe not… because it’s obviously more cost effective to just go ahead and require stationing two “doormen” on site, each who earn into six figures a year, for three days in an effort to minimize the incessant banging and distraction to everyone sitting in the last 20 rows.

3. Wearing out your welcome. If you’re still milling around flapping your gums when someone walks over to the breaker box and starts turning off the lights, you have overstayed your welcome. The fact that you’re the last six people in a 1000 person auditorium and the lights are off are an unmistakable sign that you need to take your ass elsewhere. Rest assured that after 13 hours on my feet, your dirty looks are the very least of the things I could possibly care about.

4. Name dropping. Something to keep in mind is that I’m not in any way impressed by who you work for or what names you drop. I’m not entirely sure what kind of people fall all over themselves because you think you have weight to throw around, but believe me when I say that you don’t… and even if you did, I really wouldn’t care.

Challenge accepted…

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Every Thursday night for the last two years, you’ve all been treated to a brief glimpse into what slights and outrages are simmering in my head as the week rolls towards its end. What Annoys Jeff this Week is consistently the most read post of the week and probably comes closest to capturing what I think of as my “authentic voice.” It’s a mostly unfiltered dump directly from my head onto the page and has probably saved me tens of thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis bills.

For some time earlier this year, Sunday mornings were reserved for reposting the “lost blogs” from MySpace and Blogger. They weren’t met with quite as much interest as WAJTW, but having a weekly theme did give me an uptick in traffic for Sunday mornings – no small thing on a day and time when most people are otherwise engaged with other than web-based activities.

This past Thursday a challenge was issued by one of my good and loyal readers to adapt my format slightly and offer a once a week post featuring What Jeff Likes this Week. I wasn’t immediately drawn to the idea. Most weeks I’d be hard pressed to come up with three items to talk about. Knowing this, my challenger graciously offered to let me get away with just expounding on one thing each week.

Challenge accepted. Beginning on Sunday, November 23rd and running every Sunday through the end of the year, you’ll be reading a new weekly mini-feature right here at jeffreytharp.com. I’m still kicking around actual titles, but the suggestions What Slightly Manages Not to Bug Jeff too Much this Week and What Jeff is Mostly Indifferent About this Week continue to be strong contenders.

Check back next Sunday to see what I come up with.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Failing to read for comprehension. When I send you a four sentence email it’s not like reading the entire thing is going to monopolize your day, especially when one of those sentences tells you exactly how to do what you’re trying to do. No, the answer isn’t to send me more “follow up” emails. The answer, as I will tell you over and over and over again as needed, is right there starting on line two of the original response, which you obviously didn’t stop long enough to read. You can feel free to “follow up” all you want, but damned if I’m doing it for you. Your inability to read and comprehend simple English is not so much my responsibility.

2. The value of time. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know the value of my time. It’s the most limited commodity I have and it doesn’t come cheap. Unless you’re on the friends and family plan, it never, ever comes free. Whatever it is that’s so critical, unless it’s an immediate threat to life or property, really isn’t so critical and certainly doesn’t give rise to the need to give anyone a freebie. I’ve been around long enough to know that there’s always a tomorrow… and on the off chance there isn’t a tomorrow none of it is really going to matter at that point anyway.

3. Non-surprise surprises. For the love of Pete, when I’ve been telling you for weeks that X is going to happen on Y date how in seven hells are you surprised on Y-4 that Y is going to happen next week. It’s been on the damned calendar for 5 months. We’ve had at least 30 meetings about it, but whoa, every-damn-body but me seems to be taken by surprise. Look, I know we always try to kill the gator closest to the boat first, but there’s no way I’m letting anyone get away with the “Uh, I didn’t know” excuse on this one. I find it interesting that all the things we didn’t have time to do three months ago, we now suddenly want to cram into a day and a half. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t wrap myself in knots trying to do that which is inherently illogical if not downright impossible given the limitations of available time and manpower.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Because I keep track of such things, I can tell you that this is the 150th weekly edition of What Annoys Jeff this Week. I have no idea whether I should be proud of that fact or horrified by it. Regardless, I’d have felt terrible in letting it pass without noting this small monument to one man’s ability to bitch and complain constantly and at length over long periods of time. As much as I’d like to just let this be a self-congratulatory post that feels like it would be something of a cop out… With that foremost in my mind, here are the three things that top my list of annoyances this week:

1. Forgetting. My memory has never been all that strong. Names? Forget it. I’ll forget a new person’s name before they’ve even left the room. There’s just something off with that part of my brain. I’ve learned to work around it without it usually being obvious. Forgetting the plastic pass that lets me into the building in the morning is something more problematic. That’s happened twice now in the last three weeks – both times because my pass was just a little off where where it normally sits. Apparently deviating from the morning routine even by as little as six inches one way or another is enough to mean I’ll end up driving 40 minutes to work, going home, and then trying the morning commute for the second time. If it happens again, I’m just going to staple the damned thing to my forehead and be done with it.

2. Realizing your own (lack of) importance. Most people don’t know this about me, but I have a long history of tilting at windmills. I’ve made staking myself to lost causes almost my life’s work. You could almost call me a patron of futility. It’s probably some kind of deep character flaw, but it’s been my mode of operation for so long that I’m not sure I’d know how to proceed any other way. Because of my windmill tilting tendencies I get to enjoy that awkward moment when you’re forced to admit that you’re nowhere nearly as important to someone as they’ve been to you. It’s a roundhouse kick to the ol’ ego. Fortunately I’ve got that in spades, although that still doesn’t make an distasteful truth any more palatable.

3. Missing deadlines. For the first time possibly ever, I’m facing a major project that in all likelihood I won’t be able to bring in on time. That’s made all the more problematic because there’s no option but to bring it in on time. There’s no rain date and the thing is going to happen no matter how many bits and pieces I’m still holding when the time comes. It’s infuriating because there was plenty of time to get everything in formation – right up until the point we (collectively) started getting sloppy and letting sloppy be ok. My inner perfectionist is aghast at the possibility.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The last minute. Look, when you suddenly realize that we now have a day and a half to do something I’ve been warning you about for six weeks, I hope you don’t mind if my giveashitometer stays somewhere in the “normal” range. Are bad things going to happen if this doesn’t get done in the next 12 working hours? Yes. Is is something that could have been avoided by taking action when I raised the alarm earlier? Yes. Will it result in death or dismemberment of anyone as it goes careening wildly off the rails? No. So is it something that I’m going to lose any sleep over? Not a bloody chance.

2. Gay. Did you see that Tim Cook is gay? Yeah. So what? Straight, gay, bi, undecided, whatever… I just don’t care. Are you a decent human being? Do you pay your taxes and contribute to society? If yes, then I say God bless and have a good life. Who you love or how you get your jollies doesn’t make a lick of difference to me. I don’t want to live your life any more than I want you to live mine, so as long as you’re not a douchecanoe we’ll probably get along ok.

3. Mutual exclusivity. I ate lunch at 2:00 yesterday afternoon. That’s only 150 minutes later than usual and mostly because many people decided that mid-day on Wednesday was a good time to stack meetings and a fire off a half dozen pesky questions that need answers right-the-hell-now. What you shouldn’t do after a day like that is show up asking about some random ass other thing that I was notionally working on before three kinds of hell broke loose. No. I did not get to it. I don’t have that answer. And the likelihood of my getting it in a timely manner (i.e. yesterday) is between slim and none. We’ve had this conversation before, but it’s worth repeating that I can either sit in meetings listening to other people talk or I can sit at my desk and actually get work done. The two options, however, continue to be mutually exclusive. It’s very simple, really. If you want 16 hours worth of work done in an 8 hours period, you can either hire another body or open up the overtime spigot. Failing those options, and given my slacker-like inability to be in two places at once, your courses of action are otherwise fairly limited.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Meeting prep. My feelings about meetings are fairly well known and not at all surprising. As wonderful as the average meeting is, the time wasted just sitting in them isn’t the only thing that fuels my discontent. The real problem is everyone – and I mean everyone – seems to look for excuses to have a call a meeting. It’s like what alleged professions do to kill time when they’re bored or lonely. Add to that people’s natural tendency to take Mondays and Fridays off and most meetings stack up like cordwood on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The issue then becomes the inordinate amount of time a poor simple soul then needs to spend just to find and reserve an empty room that has all the required audio/visual bells and whistles. Getting that process done from start to finish usually takes two or three times as long as the meeting itself. To add insult to injury about 30% of the time once you’ve wasted half the day just getting the room itself, the crazy bastards that set up the meeting in the first place cancel it – or worse – they change the time, which leads directly into an endless cycle of wash, rinse, and repeat. The whole thing is maddening.

2. It could be worse. People who comment “it could be worse” as a response when situations go bad clearly miss the point. Of course it could be worse. You can always hit rock bottom and then start digging. Just because you can, however, doesn’t mean you should. Just because it’s not as bad as the worst possible scenario doesn’t mean it’s good and it sure as hell not something to be chipper about. Asshat.

3. Bad investments. I bought a house in December 2007. A month later the bottom fell out of the real estate market… and then proceeded to keep falling for the next four years before leveling off. You might have heard something about it on the news for the better part of the last decade. It’s only been in the last year that there’s been any progress towards clawing back a little of that value. It’s too little, too late. Even with the barking dog neighbors on one side and the regularly evicted neighbors on the other, I liked my house. I wish I could have boxed it up and moved it north with me. Instead it’s just sitting down there being a bad investment, bleeding me a few hundred dollars at a time. As much as I hate to admit the mistake – and making permanent the loss incurred – I’m ready to call it what it is, take my lumps, and move on expeditiously. What I lose in cash flow surely will be offset by the removal of the damed albatross from around my neck.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Standards. As a matter of principle, I never hold anyone to a higher standard than I hold myself. By the same token I don’t hold them to a lower one either. I’m many things but I do my best to avoid having hypocrite show up on that list – especially when it’s no harder a matter than maintaining just a little bit of consistency. Jaded as I am, though, I still find I can be surprised when people seem to behave with no sense of personal standards at all. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure whether it bothers me more that they do it or that I care.

2. Low Expectations. The high point of this week at the office was the arrival and unboxing of a new industrial strength shredder. I’m not even making that up. Given the volume of paper we push a heavy duty shredder isn’t a luxury item. It’s damned near an essential. An essential that we haven’t had for the last quarter of a year. It makes me a little sad to find my expectations of what constitutes a “good day” have been lowered so far that being able to turn PowerPoints into confetti now falls near the very top of the list.

3. Apple. I found myself reading through the initial reports from this afternoon’s Apple product rollout and rather than finding myself in need of selling a kidney for some new tech, I found myself mostly shrugging with something that approximated indifference. The latest iteration of iPad lacked something of the wow factor of a truly new product. The new iMac looks well enough kitted up, but not nearly enough to get me to drop $3K+ on on a desktop computer. There was nothing there that will find me leaping from bed at 3AM to make sure my pre-order is in. I know that every new product update can’t be a show stopper, but I’d have appreciated a little bit of “wow” when it comes time to deliver what should be iconic product offerings.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Purpose. I don’t think everyone needs to go around all day every day at 1000 miles an hour with their hair on fire, but I do think we would all be better served if people would at least drive with a sense of purpose; as if getting from their point of departure to their destination was actually important to them in some way. Instead, what I find most every afternoon is a mass of people wandering the highways and byways as if they haven’t a clue where they are, how they got there, or what they’re supposed to be doing. Even if we can all agree to move with purpose between the hours of 4:30 and 7:00 PM, I truly believe the world would be a better and more harmonious place.

2. Flashing Lights. While I’m on the topic of roads and transportation, this might be a good opportunity to give everyone a refresher on flashing traffic lights at an intersection and what they mean to you. Red, almost universally means stop yes, even when it’s flashing. Unless Mr. Williams taught me the wrong skills lo those many years ago in drivers ed, yellow flashers hanging above the intersection mean proceed with caution. It should be noted here that it is not an alternative method of telling drivers to stop. Sitting in your car at a flashing yellow light yelling at me while I’m sitting at a flashing red makes you look like an asshat or maybe more like an ignorant skank. Possibly both.

3. Doubt. I like to ponder. Having the time to sit and think has always been important to me. Unfortunately I also have a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time dwelling on slights both real and imagined. I’ve been afflicted with that particular problem since I was a kid. Although I’ve learned plenty of coping skills to keep those rough edges from showing too much, I still feel it acutely. I hate how even a momentary doubt can seep in and color every other thought and decision for days on end. I hate that I sometimes take counsel of my fears despite all my best efforts to the contrary. It’s without question the one element of my personality that I’d most like to change.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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I usually give WAJTW over to three short, unrelated snippets of stupid that I’ve encountered during the week. From time to time, though, a single issue is of such magnitude that I feel it’s worthy of undivided attention. This week is one of those occasions.

For the last two months, we’ve been hearing around the office all manner of things about a “climate survey” conducted earlier this summer. Most of the time these surveys come and go without much notice. I don’t know exactly what the responses were in this most recent round of questioning, but I can only surmise that the results were beyond bad. It’s the first time in almost 13 years that I’ve ever seen an organization actually do something in response to their survey.

I should draw a line of distinction here between doing “something” and doing the right thing. So far, my little slice of the organization has been talked through the survey results on five separate occasions. We’ve now had two sessions with different groups allegedly to discuss what our perceptions of the problems are. Today marked (I think) the 8th time that we dedicated at least an hour or more of the work day to this topic. You’d think by now there would be more than a passing awareness at echelons higher than reality of what the issues are, who’s responsible, and the effects it’s having across the workforce.

What I’ve seen so far is that we’re spending a hell of a lot of time talking about things. What I haven’t seen is anyone actually doing something with the mountain of information they’ve already been given. I’ve been around long enough to know that the game plan probably involves talking about it for so long that people forget there’s actually a problem… Which in all likelihood makes much of the last two months a very large effort to check off the “we hear your concerns and are doing something about it” box.

On that score the powers that be are right. They’ve done just enough to demonstrate initiative, but not nearly enough to make a damned bit of difference… and thus does the great green machine go rolling along.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Decisions. I’m theoretically leading a project right now. I say theoretically because every time we get together to discuss it, we revisit and rehash decisions that I was under the impression were made a month or two ago. But no, instead of actually trying to move the ball forward, we want to spend our time going over and over and over and over and over the same damned material. I have to wonder if the weekly outcome would be any different if organizations didn’t send a different representative to this exercise in futility each week. Then maybe we could get a little institutional memory going and I could wrap up a Thursday without without my blood pressure treading dangerously close to stroke territory. All for the want of decisions that actually stick once they’re made.

2. Thursday Dinner. I try to cook a big meal every Sunday – enough so there are two or three days of leftovers and I don’t have to do any heavy cooking after work. By Thursday night, though, even the biggest of meals has either disappeared into my gullet or is just no longer appetizing. As much as a creature of habit as I am, eating the same dinner four days in a row is a touch too far for me. That’s generally how you end up having scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast for dinner on Thursday night. Not that I dislike either of those things, but after a long stupid day something more substantial would have been nice. Sadly, something more substantial would have also required far more effort than I was willing to put in.

3. Guilt. Most nights, especially now that it’s getting dark earlier, Maggie and Winston are happy to snooze peacefully under the kitchen table while I try to combine words into sentences and sentences into complete thoughts. On other nights, Winston tries to be a 40 pound lap bulldog and Maggie somehow manages to wedge herself between my elbow and the keyboard. They’ve been in “needy” mode all week… and while I couldn’t do without them, it would be nice if I’d have bothered to raise more independent children.