Tag Archives: annoyed

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

What annoys Jeff this week? Shit. I could write a book on that. There’s one thing, though, that stands out in my mind this week. It’s the mother of annoyances. The one that if it didn’t happen day in and day out with a steady drum beat, so many of the other, smaller annoyances wouldn’t exist at all.

I don’t know exactly if it’s human nature or just SOP in our little part of the world, but the propensity for people to ignore things right up until the movement when it needs to be finished drives me directly around the bend. It makes me into an absolute mental case.

When you’ve known for weeks (or months) something needs to happen, but only start looking at it a day before it’s needed – or even better – two days after it was supposed to be finished, what exactly am I supposed to think? Well, first, your time management skills blow, but that’s just the baseline. If you procrastinate everything until the last possible moment all you guarantee is that everything in your wheelhouse is a self inflicted crisis. There’s no planning, no strategic vision, and certainly no sense that some ideas require time and attention to mature into final products. If you do happen to scrape something together to meet a “surprise” requirement, it’s a giant flaming shit sandwich. As often as not it’s not even a sandwich – just the various component ingredients for making one.

At that point why bother? Just admit that you’re a enormous waste of resources who exists purely to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide and draw a salary. I’d at least appreciate the honesty of admitting that someone doesn’t give a good goddamn. Hell, it would be refreshing. I’d almost respect you for it.

As it is, at least I know why every day is an exercise in jumping though my own ass to get even the simplest of projects done – because expecting people to pay attention is our own personal bridge too far.

A year and then some…

Posted on by

Back on the 21st of February, I published my usual Thursday edition of What Annoys Jeff this Week. It took me a few weeks to noice that the link for that post ended with /what-annoys-jeff-this-week-365.

It took me even longer than that to recognize the implication of what I was seeing. Somehow, I’ve managed to post a full years worth of weekly annoyances as part of the “blogging to keep myself sane” program instituted here long, long ago. Just let that sit there and sink in (or fester) for a moment.

Saved here in the never-really-goes-away electronic universe are 365+ weekly posts dedicated to telling the world what trifling ridiculousness has earned my ire that week. I mean you could read one a day starting tonight and not read the last one of the batch until some time in late March 2020.

Friends, that’s a lot of being annoyed, I can promise you that. Even so, what’s recorded here is just the stuff that made the cut on any given week. I shudder to imagine what the totals would look like if I bothered to write down everything that was ever in the running. Is it possible to clog the the internet with the sheer volume of bitching and complaining you’re trying to cram through its tubes?

Based on the comment section of most major news sites, I doubt it somehow.

Anyway, I’m currently taking an inordinate amount of pride in the amount of annoyed I’ve managed to rack up. I’m not quite sure it’s a badge of honor, but it’s something.

Your lack of sleep is showing…

Posted on by

I haven’t been sleeping worth a damn for the last week or so. It’s not a problem falling asleep. That happens fast enough, occasionally before I even have time to reach over and flick off the lamp. It’s more a problem of staying asleep once I get there. I’m naming the direct cause(s) as a free-roaming cat, a dog that fights for every inch of bed space and another whose snores seem to be able to shake the very ground, a trip to the bathroom occasionally, and my poor sleep addled brain trying to tune it all out. It hasn’t been a winning combination for a couple of nights now.

It’s starting to bleed through into things like a marvelously reduced attention span, incredibly hostile mood (yeah, more so than usual), grumbling at dogs who are doing dog stuff, and even, I suspect, the complete shit that passes for blog posts that I’ve been planting here. Sorry about that. I don’t know that coming clean about it makes those bad posts any better, but it’s at least honest.

There are things I could do that would probably improve my quality of sleep – banish the animals and the electronics from the bedroom, cut way back on liquid consumption after dinner, and generally try to decrease aggravation from 8PM onward. None of those things feel particularly likely to happen, though, so maybe we should all just get use to expecting me to be more surly and less coherent from here on out.

Divisible by ten…

Posted on by

Every year I’m surprised at the end of May when I find myself inexplicably even more irritable than usual. Like salmon returning up river to die, the run up to June comes on without me consciously taking notice of it. Or rather not taking note of it until I sit down and ask myself why I’m dramatically more agitated that normal.

Yes, friends, you guessed it. It’s birthday time again. You see, the fare that accompanies the traditional American birthday is just a little bit of personal hell as far as I’m concerned. A room full of people, dumb hats, forced polite chatter – it sounds perfectly awful. It’s more tolerable when I’m not at the center of it, but I’d just as soon the day slide astern with as little fuss as possible.

It does explain why I’ve largely been feeling “off” this last week or so. Once you’re past 21 – or maybe 25 if you’re really excited about being able to rent a car – the whole exercise of birthday celebrating takes on a decidedly “so what” flavor. Maybe that flavor is even worse this year because it’s one of the big ones divisible by ten.

I take more than a little comfort in knowing it will be past soon and once that happens my mood will improve dramatically if I can go out on a limb and use past performance to predict future results.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. I’m not making things up. If I tell you there’s a new requirement, it’s not because I went home the night before and dreamed up some new and complicated way to screw with your universe. In each and every case I’m passing along decisions made by those at echelons higher than reality. You are, of course, perfectly free to ignore me. However, when a shitstorm rains down on your head it won’t be because I didn’t warn you.

2. Dreaming in PowerPoint. There comes a point in this one particular project I work on every year when the dream shows up. It’s never quite the same dream, but it always deals with PowerPoint in some way. The dream showed up Tuesday night. Like the three ghosts warning Scrooge of his sure path to hellfire and damnation, my PowerPoint dream has arrived and it’s a sure as anything warning that I’m heading at speed in the general direction of a breakdown – or at least a profound hissy fit. Possibly both.

3. Everything else. Frankly over the next 22 or so days it would probably just be easier to talk about whatever happened during the week that hasn’t annoyed me. There’s a far better than usual chance if I’m awake and not at the house I’m just barely restrain a scowl, eye-roll, or sarcastic comment. Occasionally the temptation will be so great that all three happen simultaneously. The only appreciable bright point is that on day 23 onward life should get considerably less rage inducing.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

If you’re clicking over to jeffreytharp.com and it’s Thursday, there’s a better than average chance that you’re looking for What Annoys Jeff this Week. It’s the only weekly feature I offer here and it remains almost without exception my high water mark for readers each and every week. If you’re here to read the next installment of the top three major or minor annoyances this week, though, I’m afraid I’m about to disappoint you. That’s because I’m going to use the platform this afternoon to go down a much more self-congratulatory path… I think.

If you look closely at the web address up at the top of the page you’ll see that it’s showing WAJTW/301. For those not following along that means it’s the 301st time “What Annoys Jeff this Week” is being used as a title. Given the occasional missed Thursday (although there have been damned few of those) WAJTW has been showing up regularly here for six years. In that time there have been about 900 documented annoyances. I’m still trying to wrap my head around those numbers. Even I have to admit that’s more grievances than I expected… and I’m the one who took the time to write them all out. I refuse to even do the math on how much time got poured into that (but it rhymes with funhundred and fifty hours and that assumes it only took 30 minutes to bang out each post).

So, what do you do when you realize you’ve spent an inordinate amount of time cataloging and bitching about the myriad things that have agitated you over the last six years? Since it’s the start of a long weekend, you mostly shrug your shoulders, order up a pizza, and wonder what jackassery the world is going to throw at you over the next six years. Say what you will about my chosen theme, but if you trade in people who do stupid things and what pisses you off, the well is just about bottomless. In my own utterly jaded way, I’m actually thankful for that.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

If you’ve been sitting around this Thursday night wondering What Annoys Jeff this Week and what on earth could be holding up this nearly 300 week long running regular feature, the simple fact is there is nothing currently annoying me. I’ve met my favorite band, had some delightfully good food, spent a great deal of time with the animals, and done a bit of reading. The largest single factor that drives nearly all the things that annoy me has simply not been present this week and all has been well. 

There’s probably an important life lesson in that, but due to my interest in not being foreclosed on and forced to live under a bridge, it’s a lesson I’m not in a position to act upon. Maybe I’m actually annoyed this week after all. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. ​Not hungry. It’s a rare accomplishment but I’ve slid through the last two days being so annoyed that I’m not even hungry. Bowl of cereal for dinner. A cookie and a giant iced tea for lunch. Copious amounts of coffee at all other points on the clock. I’m assuming that’s not one of those healthy diets people keep posting on Facebook but it is what it is.

2. Unity of command. It’s another one of those exciting weeks where I’m not entirely sure which of six people I actually work for. I know who signs my time sheet and who approves my leave requests, those being the most important functions of supervision. Identifying who exactly is supposed to assign and prioritize my work, though, remains a vague bit of prognosticating. If only we had an organizational chart that spelled out clearly who does what to whom.

3. The challenge of being topless. When you climb onto a Jeep with its top and doors removed you leave yourself open to whatever elements come. You also leave yourself exposed to the other people on the road. Cigarettes flicked out of the window of the car in front of you suddenly have a much more present danger than they did when you were buckled up in a sealed, climate controlled machine. It’s also important that the people near you can actually both see every gesture you make and hear whatever it is you’re saying (or singing along with). That’s a helpful bit to remember if you’re prone to criticizing the skills of your fellow motorists in colorful terms… although the guy stopped next to me on the bridge yesterday seemed to particularly enjoy my repeated pleas for the police to just push the mangled vehicles over the side, let the asshats responsible figure out how to fish them out of the Susquehanna, and get traffic moving again.

Today in history…

Posted on by

I had planned for today to be one of those most rare of occurrences where I make two blog posts on the same day. First and foremost, it’s Thursday and regardless of what else Thursday might be it’s a time for What Annoys Jeff this Week. If you came here tonight hoping for your daily does of what three things annoyed the hell out of me this week, sadly you can’t read them because WordPress completely overwrote that post a few minutes ago.

However, all is not lost because in addition to the weekly spectacular that is WAJTW, this particular Thursday is also important for many other reasons.

First and foremost on June 1, 1495 Scotch whisky appears in the Exchequer (tax) rolls of Scotland for the very first time. If that doesn’t make it a red letter date worthy of celebration, I don’t know what does, really.

On June 1, 2011 I made the 879 mile drive from Memphis to Maryland for the last and final time. That was a big deal.

On June 1, 2015 I discovered that the basement of the new house I’d so eagerly purchased leaked like submarine with a screen door in anything harder than a drizzle – triggering ten thousand dollars in unplanned back yard renovation work to correct and landing my plan for fancy new master bathroom on the indefinite hold pile.

More important than any of those past events, perhaps, is that June 1, 2017 marks exactly 18 years until I’m eligible to retire and begin my life as a proper hermit on some far off mountaintop hideaway.

Oh, yeah, and as many of you have sussed out through various means, it’s also my birthday, so I guess there’s that. I appreciate all the kind words and texts and emails and calls. You guys are just the best.
​

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

I usually keep a running list of these things. It’s a rare Thursday when I don’t have nearly a page full to pick from. It’s a rarity, but it does happen from time to time. In fact it’s almost always the hallmark of it being an incredibly dull week.

Some people would look at that term as a negative. They’re the kind of people who jump out of perfectly serviceable airplanes or wrestle alligators. I’m not one of them. I’m just pleased as punch when things run on time and to standard. I’m happy not to bitch and complain when the universe gives me no reason to call it out.

It’s been an easy week with no work-related crises, a reasonably low instances of interaction with stupid people (or people in general, really), and the chance to knock down one of the first big projects on my “Want to Do” list instead of ticking off another one of the “Need to Do” items. There’s plenty of time yet for the wheels to come off, of course, but just now I’m not feeling very annoyed about this week at all.

Sorry to disappoint you.