Category Archives: What Annoys Jeff this Week?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Surprise overtime. I’m not naive enough to think that an eight hour workday means eight-and-out every day of the year. Sometimes unavoidable circumstances conspire to make getting it all done in eight impossible. Other times, we inflict ridiculous requirements on ourselves and then spend the afternoon and early evening running around trying to prove to someone that we can get job we just created done in a big way. Look, I’m just a working drone. I saw the other side of the fence and the long hours and sneaking way that it takes over every other part of your life has more than lost its luster. I’m more than happy to do my time and then head to the house… though honestly, sometimes it’s good to have a reminder just why I veered off the road not taken in the first place.

2. Forgetting to jot things down that annoyed you at the beginning of the week and promptly forgetting them before it’s time to blog about them. Sure, it’s probably a sign that it wasn’t all that annoying in the first place, but still, it leaves you scratching your head and really reaching for space filler on Thursday night when you’ve got half a dozen other things to do.

3. Something else, I’m sure… But I have absolutely no idea what it should be. Plus I’m tired and cranky. While sometimes that makes for some good writing, I’m pretty sure this is not one of those times.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Comcast. We’re now on the 3rd monthly bill that’s jacked up as a result of my changing cable plans. This month’s bill got it mostly right, but still shows a $16 charge for a DVR and service that I no longer have. That’s not going to blow the monthly budget, of course, but it’s one of those small things that it really shouldn’t take three months to sort out. Now that I’m not really doing any living in the basement, I think I’ll just have that cable drop turned off and send the box back… At this point, any time I can put fewer dollars in Comcast’s garter, the happier I am. Optimistically, I think we should have everything resolved by sometime in June.

2. Terms of Service. If Instagram changes their terms of service and you don’t like it, go ahead and delete your account. To the best of my knowledge, no one is required to use Instagram. Since their providing a free service to the people of the interwebs, I think it’s only fair that we expect that at some point they’re going to have to figure out a way to make money from their service. If my fancy business classes are to be believed, the whole point in starting a company is to actually make money. Otherwise, they’d be a charity (or an arm of government) and would be interested in providing all of us something for nothing until the end of time. If you think applying filters to your grainy camera pics is so important, go ahead and by a copy of Photoshop and do it up right.

3. The Friday before a Ten Day Weekend. If anyone is expecting great and wonderful things tomorrow, let me disabuse you of that notion before we even get there. Although my body may be physically be shackled to my desk for one last eight hour stint, rest assured my mind has already flown the coop for 2012 and isn’t accepting any additional old business at this time.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Self-Inflicted Crisis. It’s hackneyed because it’s true: A failure to adequately plan on the part of someone else, does not in any way constitute a crisis on my part. Screwing around Boomwith something all week and then dropping it in someone else’s lap at the last minute hoping they’re going to drop everything and fix it over the weekend does not constitute a plan. At best it constitutes hope… and hope, as we all know, is not generally considered a sound planning methodology.

2. Sharing the “wealth”. If you’re hacking up a lung and sound more or less like you could drop dead at any moment, do the world a favor and take a sick day. I don’t care if you’re saving sick days for little Scotty’s tonsillectomy or planning to take a few mental health days later in the month, show a little consideration for the people forced to sit within ten feet of you for eight hours a day and go the hell home. Trust me, you’re not showing anyone how dedicated you are. Even if you’re perfectly willing to drop dead in harness at your desk, no one breathing the same air is interested in your misguided sacrifice on the altar of the workday.

3. Christmas Shopping. Sure, 95% of my Christmas gifts are going to be given in the form of small rectangular plastic cards, but that doesn’t mitigate the fact that it’s getting to the point where I can no longer blissfully ignore the impending arrival of the holiday. At some point, probably this weekend, I’m going to have to break down and do what passes for my version of Christmas shopping. Loosely translated, that means picking up a few quality bottles of hooch at the local liquor store and then hitting up a few other places to pick up gift cards. Come to think of it, there may yet be time to order all the gift cards online and have them sent to the house… then all I need to do for the weekend is stop at the liquor store. That’s a Christmas task that even I can get behind.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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It’s been a slow week for petty annoyances… and while that’s technically a good thing because it tends to mean my blood pressure isn’t all over the map, it also doesn’t make for a great weekly spot. Despite being a pretty good week overall, there are a few things that I can’t let pass without mentioning.

1. Support services. Theoretically, office trash is supposed to be picked up three times a week. That happens probably 50% of the time. 40% of the time, someone shows up for it twice a week. Last week was one of those 10% moments when no one came by at all. I tote and haul my own trash at home, so I don’t have any philosophical issues with carrying it to the dumpster here at the office – it’s more so a function of a) not knowing where the trash actually goes once it leaves my cubicle, b) not having any of the baby-sized trash bags to replace the one I need to throw out, and c) we’re paying someone good money on a contract that calls for them to, you know, take the bloody trash out three times a week. It’s a small thing, I know, but I have a creeping suspicion that it’s just the surface-level indication that government writ large doesn’t have a clue what kind of quality service it’s getting for our money.

2. Favors. As a rule I try not to ask for favors. That’s mostly because I don’t want to end up then owing someone a favor down the line. If someone asks, though, and it’s not too off-putting, I’m generally open to helping them out. All I really ask is that you be clear about your request. For instance, if you say something like “Hey, can you pick me up a Coke when you go get your lunch” don’t act surprised when what I bring back is a Coke. You see, the thing is, I can’t read your mind. I have no earthly way of knowing that by “Coke” you mean Diet Coke. Honestly, I just don’t pay that kind of attention to people’s daily beverage choices, so I make the blithe assumption that you’re asking for what you actually want. If I asked someone to pick me up a cup of coffee, I’m not sure I’d be offended if they brought back a cup of regular black coffee instead of a vinti-vanilla-latte-extra-hot-with-a-shot. I would have failed to specify what I really wanted… and I damned sure wouldn’t have stood there expecting the person doing me the favor to cover the cost of what I asked them to bring me because they weren’t able to read my bloody effing mind and know what I asked for wasn’t what I wanted. I would have just said “thanks” and gone on about my day. From here on out, the answer is always “no.” Thanks for playing.

As a side note, this is the 53rd regular installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. Hard as it is to believe, you’ve been listening to my weekly list of grips for a year now. I won’t say it’s actually been cathartic, but it sure is fun to take a little time once a week to call out stupid for what it is.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Comcast. Making the list for the third or fourth time this year is the cable company that everyone loves to hate. Ever since I downgraded my service a two months ago, my bills have been arriving with what I’ll generously call wild inaccuracies. I spent 30 minutes yesterday on the phone with a very nice CSR who thought she was going to be able to make this month’s round of corrections. Except, of course, she couldn’t because the amount of the correction was in excess of $25… which triggered the need to execute what I believe she called an “elevation form for tier two service.” Instead of being transferred to this group of genies, I’d have to “stand by for them to contact me sometime within the next five business days.” I don’t know why I ever hold out hope that anything can either A) just work the way it’s supposed to work or B) Be corrected with a single phone call. Clearly my expectations are misaligned with reality.

2. The five day work week. I’m out of practice with being at my desk for a full five days in a row. I know this because it’s Thursday and the only ambition I have left is to muddle through tomorrow and get to the weekend. It’s not that the week has been particularly busy, problematic, or strange… but the trek from Monday to Friday has just seemed to go on forever. Now if I can just gin up enough oomph to drag myself through three more long weeks, I’ll be all set for the 11-day Christmas weekend.

3. Lunch. When I worked in DC, it was two blocks to Chinatown, one metro stop from Union Station and the Hill, or a 10 minute walk in almost any other direction to find a diverse and tasty array of lunch options. Here in Aberdeen, there’s a Subway, a Burger King, and a few other lunch places that more or less serve the same thing. While I don’t miss the daily 90 minute commute, I desperately miss having some variety in my lunch options. I miss General Tso’s from Tony Chang’s, burgers at the District Chophouse, and deep dish from Armand’s. At this point, God help me, I even have fond memories of the build your own salad bar next door to the office and the hot dog cart set up on the curb. I’m not expecting an urban food environment here in the wilds of north eastern Maryland, but if I don’t find something other than sandwiches soon I may have to resort to bringing my own food… and that’s just not an option I want to entertain.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Power everything. As a rule I appreciate the power accessories that Toyota has jam packed into my Tundra. What I don’t like is that now that the days have turned brisk, my “automatic” power window has an annoying habit of going down about a third of the way and then stopping. Press the button again and It sluggishly goes down the rest of the way. It’s obviously some kind of issue with the electronics, but it means I spend most mornings hoping that it won’t get stuck halfway down when roll though the front gate at work on some 35 degree, rainy morning. I’m going to try nursing it though another 1000 miles until the truck goes in for its next oil change so I can kill both birds with one trip. Until then, I’m going to nostalgically wish that I could just make the necessary adjustments with an old fashioned hand crank rather than a rather suspect electric motor.

2. A cold dark place. Getting dark at 5PM sucks. It sucks worse when it’s accompanied by the temperature dropping like a stone. When I moved back to Maryland, part of me was happy at the idea of having an actual winter again. As the nights get longer and the ambient temperature gets colder, I’m beginning to rethink that particular part of my rationale. Since this is one of those gripes that there is absolutely no way to do anything about other than turn on every light in the house and throw another log on the fire, this has served no purpose other than making me feel slightly better by voicing my distinct displeasure at the current state of affairs.

3. Something to do. For the better part of the last week, I’ve had the overwhelming feeling that there was something I was supposed to do. I have no earthly idea what that might be, but it’s still a nagging thought in the back of my head. My Google calendar isn’t screaming that I missed anything important and I’m not getting any foreclosure or impending disconnection notices, so it can’t be anything too pressing. Knowing that it’s surely nothing important, though, doesn’t make it any less annoying.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Fleeing to Canada. Despite the ferocity of your Facebook or Twitter conviction, face it, no one is actually going to move to Canada as a result of this week’s presidential election. Even if you did, you’d find a high tax rate, national health care, and an entire province that wants to break away and form its own country. So all you’d actually accomplish is swapping out one dysfunctional political system for another and paying a hefty moving bill for the privilege. Can we all give the hyperbole a rest and start talking about changes we can make here in the real world to start undoing the mess we’ve collectively made over the last 60-odd years?

2. Antique Technology. Using Internet Explorer 8 is pretty much like driving around in a 1979 Dodge Omni; sure it’s technically transportation, but its reliability is questionable and its style is pretty much non-existent. Like the idiot lights on out fictitious Omni, IE8 spends most of its time throwing up security certificate errors, blocking content, and generally making it unbearable to use for anything other than the most basic tasks… and even then it’s slow as Moses in a minefield. It’s always a comfort to know that here in the most technologically sophisticated arms of government, we insist on plodding along with antiques from the last decade. That’s a sure path to effectiveness and efficiency.

3. Mary Jane. If the people of the great state of Colorado want to toke up for recreational purposes, I say God bless. Given this country’s outstanding record of success at enforcing morality laws, my advice to the DEA is just let ‘em go. We can argue all night about pot being carcinogenic, addictive, a gateway to the wild world of opiates and other drugs, but I have a hard time seeing how it’s all that much different than cigarettes or alcohol. Regulate it, tax it, and then let the states decide how, when, and by whom it can be used. Carrying pot as a Schedule 1 narcotic, with heroin, meth, and LSD strikes me as dishing out a $1000 penalty for a $10 crime. In the grand scheme of shit that’s important, sorry, this just doesn’t make the cut for me.

What Annoys Jeff This Week?

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If I were to list the things that really got my goat this week, there’s a pretty good chance that I’d still be typing when it was time to start on next week’s edition. So without any further introduction let’s get right into it…

1. Cold. Or more specifically cold in the office. Or even more specifically, cold air being blown out of the air handler directly over my head and rolling down the back of my neck. Even protected as they are, ever muscle from the back of my head to my lower back feels like someone spent the last two days twisting them into knots. Thank God it was only on the 40s and 50s outside. If I walk in some morning in January and find the cold air venting, just go ahead and put me out on annual leave, because I’ll be going back to the house. When I lived in Memphis, I use to think I’d enjoy fall and winter in a more northerly clime. Clearly I was wrong. What I really want is Baltimore with Miami’s weather.

2. Warped time. It’s Thursday. I know this because both Outlook and my iPhone tell me. It has still felt like Tuesday all blessed day long. And since the only thing more annoying than feeling like Tuesday is feeling like Monday, it comes in above the cut line this week.

3. News exhaustion. I don’t say it very often, but I think I’m overloaded on the news. From Sandy to the election to random feeds that show up in my Twitter stream… At some point in the near future, I’m going to have to shut it all down for a few days. I just hope I can manage to stay focused through next Tuesday… ‘cause this one’s gonna be good.

Perspective… It’s a bitch

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One of the best parts of working for Uncle is the people you get to meet. I almost physically bumped into President Bush while I was coming out of the john at FEMA headquarters and have met Members of Congress, department secretaries, and other official worthies at equally odd times and places. Today, I got to sit in on a talk given by Sal Giunta. It’s a name some of you might recognize. In 2010, he became the first living Congressional Medal of Honor recipient since the end of the Vietnam War. Though he disputes the appellation, he is the operative definition of what it means to be an American hero.

The trouble with meeting legitimate heroes, of course, is it tends to force you to reevaluate all of your own griping and complaining. Aww. Poor baby. You don’t like going to meetings? You hate updating all these damned PowerPoint slides? Should we get you a Medal of Honor too? Touché.

So if you’re wondering why nothing annoys Jeff this week, it’s because after listening to a Medal of Honor recipient, nothing that annoys me is even worth a second thought.

Perspective… It is a bitch.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Presented for your approval, a mélange of topics that have made me want to alternately gouge out my own eyes, bludgeon others to death where they stood, and curl up in the fetal position and just have a good cry…

1. Being a whore. I sell my body for money, well, the brain part of my body anyway. I don’t usually give any particular thought to how my John wants to use me for the eight hours he pays for, but sometimes it’s just damned hard to ignore. I’ve run across very few things in my professional life that are more annoying that spending hours, days, or months working on something only to get told “woops, looks like we won’t need that now.” Whether what I’m working on ever sees the light of day or not, my time is reasonably well compensated. Still, it would be nice to know you’re whoring yourself out for something that’s actually going somewhere. You’d think a decade on, I’d be use to just lying back, opening my brain, and thinking of England, but I don’t seem to quite have the hang of it yet.

2. DVDs. Between movies and TV show season, I’m guessing that I have something like 500 disks that spend 99.999% of their time doing nothing but taking up shelf space. For all but a few favored movies or shows, they might only see the light of day once a year or less. The logical solution to no longer wanting these DVDs sitting around occupying limited storage space is to rip them to several large hard drives and serve them up through iTunes. That would be the logical solution except, of course, for the part where no one in the world offers a convenient method of extracting large amounts of data from DVD and converting it to an iTunes-ready file… and no, I don’t consider ripping and encoding one or two at a time to be a convenient method. Sadly, a quick cost/benifit analysis telles me that with the vast amount of time and effort involved in getting my movies from Point A to Point B the hard way, it might legitimately be more cost effective to just put all my DVDs into long term storage and build a new collection from scratch when I want to watch something. Just the thought of having to go that route annoys me to no end when there’s a far far less expensive, but ponderously over complicated solution to be had.

3. Walmart Pharmacy. I don’t know who gave these jokers my office phone number, but rest assured, I will not be coming in to pick up “my” two prescriptions no matter how many messages you leave. Even if they were my prescriptions, when you told me the bill was $510.64, I’d point at you, laugh, and walk away.