Category Archives: What Annoys Jeff this Week?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Short weeks feel the longest. Why is it that a four day week feels at least twice as long as its standard five day counterpart? I’m sure there’s some deep psychoanalytical reason for it, but regardless it’s just stupid. Stupid and wrong. They say time flies when you’re having fun. Clearly “they” are full of shit and it flies when you’re just barely keeping your head above water too.

2. Furlough Fridays. Look, if you’re going to start letting me stay home on Fridays, how about not waiting for six weeks to kick off the new schedule. I’m more or less resolved that it’s the new reality, but there’s really no reason at this point not to dive in to the three day weekends right away. I mean that seems like the least echelons higher than reality could to to ease our transition to part time employees.

3. The birthday thing. I generally try to be a good sport because, well, it seems to be expected, but really I’d be just as happy if the whole birthday thing would pass as discreetly as possible. Some people want to celebrate for a week or the whole month. When the time comes, I’ll open a good bottle of wine, salute my good fortune at having managed not to drop dead for another 365 days, and get on with whatever else it was I planned on doing Saturday evening. Chances are I’ll pass the night either with my nose stuck in a good book or trying to write a half-assed one.

4. Bulldog checkups. Winston’s yearly physical and vaccinations are coming up tomorrow afternoon. The only good thing is that if you’re willing to take one of the last appointments of the day on Friday, I can get the vaccinations at half price. Inconvenient? Yes, absolutely… but when you’ve spent five years keeping up with bulldog related vet bills, you learn to take your savings where you can since it’s pretty inevitable they’ll discover something new and interesting that’ll need treated while we’re there.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Instead of sending me an email saying my statement is available, how about you just email me the effing statement and save me half a dozen clicks, a password entry, and hunting around your site looking for my statement. I know you’re trying to drive traffic to your craptastic site so you can generate more ad revenue, but you’re using a really douchy and inconvenient method of making that happen… and that virtually guarantees that I won’t even consider buying whatever your marketing geniuses are trying to sell. Sure, the email notice is better than paper, but just barely.

2. The Cloud. About a year ago, we suffered through a veritable avalanche of reminders “Make Sure to back up your C: drive to the cloud.” This week we’re suffering from a flood of equal and opposite reminders to go clean up the files we’ve stored in the cloud, it’s taking up too much space on the server. Sigh. Yes, networked storage costs money, but its not that much money. And really, being able to revive a document you worked on three years ago that’s suddenly relevant again is pretty much priceless.

3. Dogs. Most of the time, dogs are perfectly happy leading their lives of sleeping, eating, going outside, and repeating ad infinitum until the end of days. Every now and then, though, they decide to change things up… for absolutely no apparent reason. Or maybe it’s just me who can’t figure out why a dog would come into the kitchen after spending half an hour outside, grin at you (and yes, I’m quite sure she grinned), and drop an enormous deuce on the floor. I love these dogs like most people love their kids… but sometimes I’m amazed that anyone puts up with having the little heathens living in their home.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Filling up the quiet time. Some people assume that because I’m not talking they need to find a way to fill in all the quiet time. Rest assured, if something needs said I’ll say it in front of princes, profits, potentates, or presidents without regard to their rank, race, or religion. I’m quiet, not shy. There is a difference. On the other hand, when I don’t have anything of substance to add, I’m happy sitting quietly. I don’t need an endless nattering buzz of small talk in my ear to make me feel connected. Most days I desperately wish some people didn’t have a pathological need to fill in the quiet times with pointless chatter.

2. iPhone. I love my iPhone 5. It’s been a workhorse since the day UPS handed it to me. Since then, we’ve gone everywhere together. We’ve been inseparable. Sure, the UI could use an update and I wouldn’t mind a bigger screen sometimes, but those aren’t the issues that make up the hate end of my love-hate relationship with this phone. It’s the battery life. It wasn’t great right out of the box, but over the last few months it’s gotten progressively worse. Through resets, wipes, switching off functions known to draw lots of power, and aggressively managing what apps are open, I can sort of slow the battery drain a bit, but that’s not exactly a substitute for a battery that doesn’t suck. I’m trying to think of a good reason why after three hours of pretty limited use, my battery is drawing down towards 50% and none really come to me. I’ll limp along with a handful of cables and a external battery pack until the 5S comes along… but if that battery doesn’t show some significant performance enhancements, it might be time to reevaluate iPhone’s place as my daily carry.

3. Turning left. When you’re the first vehicle in the left turn lane, you should go ahead and pull all the way forward to the stop line. That way the invisible traffic gnome knows that you’re trying to turn left at the intersection and can wave his green light wand to change the signal. When there’s a line of traffic 40 cars deep sitting behind you in the left turn lane, it’s sort of a bad time to be confused by basic effing driving skills, you useless excuse for a meat sack. I have no idea why it’s socially unacceptable to drag people from their cars and beat them with a Stick of Shame for such mindless asshattery.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Bank of America (I believe this entry represents their 2nd oak leaf cluster for the year to date). I totally understand you wanting proof that my condo is covered under a master insurance policy that secures the entire building and not just the walls of my unit. Due diligence is a good thing. I’m happy to send you whatever information you need. I’m going to be less enthused the second time I send you the Bank-Of-America-Logo-1same information. When you ask me for the third time to provide you with exactly the same information I’ve sent you twice already, well, I’m going to start questioning whether I can really trust you to hold my mortgage at all since you can’t seem to keep track of something as simple as the name and phone number of an insurance agent.

2. Waiting until the last minute. All rumors to the contrary, I’m actually a fan of procedures. I like knowing that there is a way to do things and that if I follow the instructions step-by-step I’ll get a predictable result. When, after following all the required steps and procedures, I find that I’ve been bumped in favor of something that’s being thrown together at the last minute without going through the same wickets, it makes me wonder if in the future it might not be better to go ahead and wait to the last minute, declare an emergency, and then do whatever the hell I want. If flying by the seat of your pants gets the same result in the end and takes 1/10th the planning time, tell me again why I should follow the actual procedures?

3. Voicemail. Yes, thanks to the wonder of modern technology you can leave a message for me on my phone that I can listen to at my convenience. You see, though, the thing is that checking voicemail is never really convenient. I see that you called. If it’s a number I recognize, I’ll call you back as soon as I can, no message needed. If it’s a number I don’t recognize, you’re going to voicemail because I don’t want to talk to you so leaving a message doesn’t really do much beyond antagonize me. More often than not I’m going to delete your message without listening to it anyway, so why not save us all some time and effort? And if you do need to hear my voice immediately and I’m not picking up, chose one of the plethora of text-based communication tools available on your phone and send a quick “need to talk ASAP.” Even when I don’t have the time or interest to drop everything else to focus on just one conversation, there’s a pretty good chance I’m keeping an eye on text messages and email and will get back to you just as fast as my two little thumbs will carry me.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Pandemonium. Despite the common perception, I’m a quiet guy. I enjoy reading. I enjoy writing. I generally enjoy activities that limit the amount of social interaction that are really required of me, though with some effort, I can make a good showing when I do need to make nice with a crowd. If you ever want to really throw me off my game, all you really need to do is drive up the noise level in the room and my nerves will start fraying on command. My blood pressure will spike and I’ll end up using most of my available focus to simply avoid biting someone’s head off. It’s not a recipe for great productivity. Maybe I really should have looked into career opportunities as a research librarian or lighthouse keeper if the whole writing thing doesn’t take off. That or possibly move my desk into an anechoic chamber.

2. Air conditioning. I’ve been known to keep it cold in the house. I’ve been known to keep it cold in the truck. What I don’t do is keep it so cold in either of those places that I need to wear gloves and a coat while I’m inside either of them. I mean it’s fun to have to stop every few minutes to keep your fingers from stiffening up and making typing damned near impossible, but it seems to me that maybe the best course of action would be to moderate the indoor air temperature a bit rather than setting it to arctic and throwing the blowers on full blast. I’m not a fancy big city engineer or HVAC specialist, but it seems to me that there are some settings on the dial between Ice Age and Sahara that someone might want to test out.

3. False advertising. Walking into a supermarket and you can usually expect to come out with groceries. Walk into Best Buy and you can usually expect to walk out with electronics. Walk into a bar and you can usually buy beer. If you think you can walk into a shop advertising out front that ‘We Sell Silver” and walk out with silver however, you would be wrong. Apparently what they meant by that sign was “We Buy Silver.” Clearly the meaning of “buy” and “sell” have been lost somewhere in translation.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Big Brother Knows Best. His distinguished honor the Mayor of New York City said earlier this week that “…our obligation first and foremost is to keep our kids safe in the schools; first and foremost, to keep you safe if you go to a sporting event; first and foremost is to keep you safe if you walk down the streets or go into our parks.” He went on to say “We cannot let the terrorists put us in a situation where we can’t do those things. And the ways to do that is to provide what we think is an appropriate level of protection.” Public safety is a key critical function of government, I agree, but we shouldn’t buy it at the expense of our other liberties. Whether they’re lost to a terrorist’s bomb to to the government trying to stop the terrorists, once those rights are gone, they’re never, ever coming back. If we let cowards change the way we live or lives, if we let government tell us how much privacy we should have or how much of other essential freedoms we need to have or how much we should be willing to surrender, well, I’m not sure I know what we’re fighting for anyway.

2. Moving the Goal Posts. I’m a tiny cog in a vast machine. As such, I’m cognizant that I have almost no control over my own schedule and even less influence over setting the agenda… but honest to God, I’ve had the same meeting scheduled and cancelled three times over the course of two days. Priorities shift, sometimes on short notice. That’s fine. I’m all for improvising, adapting, and overcoming. The hurry up and wait mentality is as old as the institution I serve – far older really. I have a suspicion that the Greek and Roman bureaucracies were not strangers to WTF moments. Expecting a schedule that everyone can agree to and stick with is a pipe dream… but that doesn’t make the constant moving goal posts any less obnoxious.

3. Thursday. Screw you, Thursday. You use to be cool. You use to be thirsty. You use to have dime drafts. Now you’re just as much a crank as any of the other weekdays – just another work-a-day trudging towards the weekend. Not even your neighbor Friday is good for much of anything these days. He’s in a pissy mood until the middle of the afternoon, so I don’t really have much use for him either. The only thing that makes either one of your tolerable is that the path to Saturday runs right through you. That’s the only reason you’re not dead to me.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

Like so many others in recent memory, this week could be a laundry list of annoyances from the great to the petty. As always, I tried to drill into the beating heart of the three that annoyed me most this week… but ask me again in five minutes and the list could have easily changed again.

1) Hiring freeze. One of the fun aspects about a hiring freeze is that although people go away and are not replaced, the things that they were doing while they were working never go away. They just get shifted around until they find someone who can do a half-assed job of getting them done. It’s the old standard philosophy of “doing more with less.” It’s a perfectly find concept when applied as a stopgap measure lasting for a relatively short duration. As a permanent part of the business model, it’s somewhat more problematic. At some point the system comes collapsing down under the weight of its own absurdity and the lords of creation have to accept one of four options: 1) Call in reinforcements; 2) Accept that sometimes they’ll just have to do fewer things with the reduced number of resources; 3) Fire everyone and hope a new crew can do it better; or 4) Continue to do everything as usual with a consequently lower level of quality. What you can’t do over the long term is keep taking on additional work while keeping up with business as usual.

2) 216 miles. Having driven or flown across most of the country at some point over the last ten years, I’ve never given much thought at to distance. It’s always just been ground to cover. Lately, though, I’ve been thoroughly, thoroughly annoyed by 216 miles. I guess perspective, and motivation, change everything.

3) The Pinterest-ing of Facebook. I like Facebook. Or I like the concept of Facebook. I’m not sure I’m a fan of how it’s evolving, but that’s another post. I like Facebook as a tool for delivering pithy updates, comic pictures of cats, and generally keeping up with friends and family. What I‘m not so much a fan of is how recently my newsfeed has been taken over by recipes, chain posts, and all manner of corporate ads. I can’t do anything about the ads and I’m not going to de-friend anyone, but you can bet your sweet ass I’m exerting extreme editorial control over the “Change What Updates You Get” function.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

Note: I know you expected to click in tonight and find the usual laundry list of what’s aggitated me at some point this week. Suffice to say that it’s been one of those weeks where it would take more space than even the internet allows. However, I did stumble across this little jewel that captures the mood just perfectly. The fact that the stage was set over 200 years ago and that we’re still fighting the same battles is strangely comforting. Sadly, I have not been able to verify that this is, in fact, a dispatch from Wellington to his political masters in London, but if it isn’t, it should have been.

August 11, 1812

Gentlemen,

Whilst marching to Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your request which has been sent to HM ship from London to Lisbon and then by dispatch rider to our headquarters.

We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty’s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.

Unfortunately, the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion’s petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensive carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstances since we are at war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.

This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty’s Government, so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue one with the best of my ability but I cannot do both.

1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London, or perchance,

2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.

Your most obedient servant,

Wellington

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Priorities. I don’t know that I’ll ever get use to something that was a earth-shatteringly critical issue yesterday being completely irrelevant today. Look, I completely understand that focus changes and priorities shift, but maybe it would be ok to give a guy some advanced notice before he spends eight hours working on something that will never actually see the light of day. Hard to believe anyone ever accuses us of being inefficient.

2. The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Since December we’ve been listening to Dear Leader: Part III lead a veritable chorus of batshit crazy tirades about attacking both the US and South Korea. Sure, everyone on the planet, including the Dear Leader’s biggest boosters in China think he’s taking his unique brand of nuts way out past the edge of reasonable saber rattling, but no one seems to know quite how to deal with him at this point. I’m a simple man, really. When someone is standing on my front porch with a lit match and a gallon of gasoline talking a lot of smack about burning down my house, I don’t just stand there waiting for him to add one plus one. It’s one of those occasional times in life that calls for swift and decisive action, rather than another six months of handwringing and hoping we can just “hug it out.” It’s all a lot of talk right up to the point where it isn’t. For once I’d like my country not to be on the receiving end of a sucker punch to spur us out of complacency.

3. Evolution. As an apex predator, humans have evolved over millions of years right along to the various flora and fauna that inhabit the earth. Over that vast amount of time, you’d think our species would have evolved some kind of general ability to deal with pollen and other allergens in the air – beyond getting a clogged nose, watery eyes, and scratchy throat. I think it’s high time we expect more out of evolution… and for that matter we should expect a hell of a lot more from science in general – because the allergy medications it’s come up with pretty much suck.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Sequestration. Some are hailing the alleged reduction in furlough days from 22 to 14 as “great” news for Defense employees. While I agree that it is news, that’s pretty much where I’m going to have to stop. It sounds a bit to me like the Pentagon is set to announce the good news that its civilian employees still have a sucking chest wound, but it was delivered form a .40 round instead of from a .45. Neither one of those events would be welcomed as a “good news” story by most people. I guess when it comes to getting screwed with your pants on, I can’t differentiate by degrees of badness.

2. Tortoise Poop. George has been part of the menagerie for about three months now. He’s been a great, non-obtrusive addition who seems to enjoy spending most days alternately sleeping in his flower pot, sitting under his sunlamp, or grazing on mixed greens. The only problem I’ve encountered so far is that tortoise poo reeks – and I don’t mean it’s a little smelly. Think more like condensed cow manure being deposited in your living room. It’s not awful if you are home and can get to it right away, but if you happen to be at work and it festers under the heat lamp all day, well, then God help you. Yankee Candle doesn’t have enough wax to cover that shit up.

3. What is Dead May Never Die. With apologies to House Greyjoy, they ain’t got nothing on the bureaucracy. Surely one of the most agitating features of work is seeing the project that was supposed to be dead and gone three months ago, that you buried, purified by fire, and hoped to never see again, rising from the ashes to again steal time and attention away from other things you’re trying to get finished. No matter how thoroughly an idea has been debunked, disproved, and derided, just wait a while and it’s sure to come back to you. Like the murderer in a horror movie, just when you think it’s long gone, it will rise again to claim at least one more victim.