Tag Archives: stupid people

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Return to work. I’m starting to see emails pinging around discussing the plan to “return to work.” What they’re really talking about is bringing people back to the office, which, if you’ve been paying attention for the last two years is not synonymous with “returning to work.” I won’t speak for anyone else out there, but for me, work has been work and the geographic area I’ve occupied while doing it has made effectively no difference in the end product I’ve churned out. Frankly, calling it “return to work” strikes me as wildly insulting. If you’ve got a shitbird who doesn’t do anything in the office, you’ll have a shitbird who won’t do anything while working from home. If you find you have a bunch of people sitting around not doing a damned thing, what you’ve got is a management and supervision problem, not a “working from home” problem. Of course that’s not the kind of answer that will satisfy those who are obsessed with seeing asses in cubicles. 

2. Failure to plan. So, here’s the thing… If some tells you that they need Thing A by the 6th in order for Thing B to happen by the 12th, you really don’t have any standing to act surprised when you send Thing A in on the 12thand Thing B cannot simultaneously happen on that day. That’s not how this works. It’s not how it should work. When there have been monthly and then weekly warnings of the dates involved over the last six months, you’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m not overwhelmed by feeling like I need to jump through my own ass. I feel like there’s a very telling old saying about your failure to plan not being an emergency for other people that’s very pertinent here.

3. Situational awareness. It costs absolutely nothing to pay attention to what’s going on around you. It’s a freebie and I have no idea why so many people insist on not taking advantage of it. In the approximately 14.4-mile round trip from home to physical therapy today, I had to take evasive action three times to avoid being driven into by another driver. There’s the truck speeding out of the shopping center aisle into my travel lane without looking, the car who decided to drive in through a one-way exit, and the minivan who was fully in my lane coming around a turn on a winding country road. The only reason I avoided two T-bones and a head on today as because I happened to have just a touch of goddamned awareness of anything happening outside my own vehicle. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Gas pump parking. I was pulling in to the gas pump at one of the 8,743 local convenience stores when an alleged person pulled in to the next pump over. The driver, his wife (or girlfriend, baby momma – who the hell knows), and a gaggle of kids pile out of the car; all in their pajamas and head into the grab-n-go. Figuring at least one of them was going to go put a $20 down to pay for gas, I didn’t think anything of it, until they came schlepping back out with their fists full of candy, big gulps, and chips, loaded back into their car and drove off. I missed the memo where parking at the pump to go grab a snack for you and your brood while people are lined up waiting for fuel on a busy Saturday morning is now a thing. If you’re really too lazy to walk the extra twenty feet from the actual parking spots at the side of the store, maybe you should just go ahead and stay home as to not tax your system unnecessarily. Fuckwit.

2. Bikers. The Thomas J. Hatem Bridge is a 4-lane span that carries 7,624 feet of east and westbound US Route 40 over the mighty Susquehanna River. Its lanes are 12 feet wide with a 1 foot shoulder. During peak traffic times, the bridge is a major bottle neck in traffic traveling to or from Cecil County and points east. On July 1st the powers that be in this great state of Maryland have decided that it’s a good idea to add bicycles to the mix by permitting them to use the bridge in the same lanes as motorized traffic. Now you can spout to me all day long about cyclist’s right to use public roads and that motorists have to be aware of their surroundings and give way, but the whole idea sounds ill advised to me. Putting a bicyclist on the same narrow span as tractor trailers and tens of thousands of rush hour passenger vehicles sounds more like a recipe for needing to hose some intrepid former bicyclist off the bridge than anything else. I’m sure lots of very nice people ride bicycles for fun and profit and I’ll feel vaguely sorry when one of them gets turned to goo on the bridge, but mostly what I’ll be is annoyed that their mangled corpse caused me to get home two hours later than usual.

3. Cecil County Government. The Cecil County Executive announced this week that the local animal shelter, currently operated under contract to a third party as a no-kill facility will be reincorporated as an arm of county government that will have a “no kill philosophy,” but not operate as a no-kill shelter. The translation here is that instead focusing efforts on working with local non-profits, other shelters, and concerned citizens, the shelter will hold animals for the minimum legal time and then begin euthanizing them when they “time out” if there is no extra capacity at the shelter. Here’s the thing, most shelters nationwide will tell you one story: there’s never extra space, but somehow many no kill facilities make it work. The government of Cecil County is in the midst of failing their citizens and their animals. Bringing back the “high kill” mentality to local animal control is the wrong answer. It’s fortuitous, at least, that this douchebaggery was announced during election season because it will certainly influence who has my support at the ballot box.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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By this time on Thursday, I like to imagine the internet is clamoring to know what annoys me this week. As much as I would have been happy not sitting here at the table dredging through my head for the stuff that I forgot to write down for the last six days, I’d feel bad disappointing the two or three of you who always notice when I don’t get around to posting. So since you’re already here, here’s what annoys Jeff this week…

1. Lack of proper planning. I was off today because I live 40 minutes from work and the vet I needed to go see has an office 30 minutes in the opposite direction. Adding at least an hour to my commute and then only working for a couple of hours seemed like a patently bad idea. What I didn’t take into account when I took the day off is that tomorrow is the Friday before a three day weekend. Why on earth I didn’t think of that in advance and go ahead and make this a five-day-weekend is simply beyond me. I feel a little bit like I failed somehow.

2. Parking lot walkers. The people who walk (slowly) two abreast down the dead center of the travel lane in a big box store parking lot. Either walk like you have something to do, develop some kind of awareness of your surroundings, or don’t act surprised and indignant when I sneak up on you in my 5,250 pound red pick up truck and lay on the horn three feet from your fat asses. On a positive note, I’m grudgingly impressed with how fast you two can move when you’re given the proper motivation. Keep up the good work.

3. On leash walks. It’s great that Winston is feeling better and is healing well. It sucks that his three no-more-than-five-minute bathroom breaks per day are now supposed to be 10-15 minute walks across as many different kinds of flora and fauna as I have available. The walking itself isn’t so much the issue. It’s the fact that when two of those walks are supposed to take place (before work and before bed) it’s pitch effing black here in the backwoods of Ceciltucky. Yeah, this guy is going to be real thrilled tomorrow to be schlepping around the yard for 15 minutes an hour before the crack of dawn tomorrow… and every day for the next two months.

In summary, that is what annoys Jeff this week. Thank you for your attention.

Life skills…

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Almost every time I leave the safe confines of the house I’m left to wonder how the human species has managed to spread across the planet and survive in every climate from the burning sands of the Sahara to the Antarctic deep freeze. Clearly not everyone is as dumb as a bag of turds, so maybe it’s just the ones I keep running into who have no appreciable life skills.

Not everyone needs to be an atomic scientist or spend their days writing the great American novel, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask for people to be able to navigate your standard big box store parking lot. I mean with the lines and the arrows and the signs and the hundreds of cars already sitting there showing you more or less what to do, you wouldn’t think it’s that hard to take a quick look around and figure out what the hell you’re doing. But then there’s the reality of small children dashing between cars, slack jawed yokels wandering the lot having forgotten where they parked 20 minutes ago, random carts rolling across the lot looking for a target, and the inevitable douchenozzle who can’t be bother to look in either direction before backing out into the traffic lane.

As far as I can tell, the only thing these people are good at is breeding more people who will grow up to be just like them. That’s unfortunate, because I’m pretty sure that’s just another sign that civilization is doomed.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Note: I know I missed last week’s edition, so you’re getting a “best of” What Annoys Jeff this Week that covers that last two weeks. No extra charge. Enjoy.

1. Meetings that start at 6PM. Saying this out loud is probably detrimental to my career, but I can’t think of any good reason aside from executive ego that justifies starting a meeting at 6PM when most everyone in the room start their day between 7 and 7:30. You either have no respect for their time or really bad time management skills. Either one of which is generally considered bad form by fancy business schools everywhere.

2. People with no sense of urgency. When I’ve been telling you for more than a week that something needs to happen by X Day, don’t be surprised, offended, or otherwise defensive on X+2 when I tell you what you’re giving me is too late to include. I don’t care that you worked really hard on it. In conclusion, you’re a douchebag.

3. Large volumes of small children. Individually and in small numbers, I’m surprisingly ok with (other people’s) kids. Pack lots of them into a relatively small space and it has a tendency to make me twitchy. It’s just that they’re collectively so loud… and fast moving. When you’ve spent your entire adult life living in blissful solitude, I’m not going to lie, a gang of 15 six year olds reeking mayhem and chaos next door is something of a shock to the system. It’s a shame that the uberwealthy hiring a hermit to live on their property to give it a pastoral feel went out of fashion with the Victorian Age. I think that’s a career path where I could have really set the standard for excellence.

4. “Scooter” People. If you’re going to ride the electric scooter at Walmart, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that you pay at least partial attention to what you’re doing. And by that I mean try not to drive it directly into my back while continuing your conversation with whatever slack-jawed yokel you came with to do your grocery shopping as if it didn’t happen. I have to admit it took real stones to give me a dirty look when I called you on it. Most of the time, I have an instinctive tendency to defer to my elders, but in your case I’ll make an exception. You, you muumuu wearing, blue haired battle-ax, are an asshat.

On notice…

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To the asshat who decided playing mailbox baseball with my mailbox was a good idea this morning, please consider yourself on notice. There’s a better than average chance that I’m older than you are. That translates into me being smarter, sneakier, and far, far more vindictive than you could possibly imagine. The first one was a freebie. Everything’s reattached, no harm, no foul. If I have to put it up a second time, I’ll be suspending my mail delivery and filling the box with concrete so that you’ll get that nice tingling feeling when you make contact. If I get lucky you’ll snap your wrist on it. If you think I won’t spend all night outside in the cold lurking in the shadows to find out who you are, well, then you’ve seriously underestimated your opponent. You shouldn’t be surprised if your car accidentally ends up sitting on the street somewhere in Camden, NJ.

Regards,

Jeff

Listening in…

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As a rule, if you’re sitting in a 700-seat auditorium, you probably shouldn’t think of your conversations as privileged in any way. In fact I was doing my best to ignore everyone around me, as is my way. Sadly, some things are just too stupid not to stick with you long after you’ve punched out at the end of the day.

One of the distinctive features of the room we happened to be in this afternoon is a display of all 50 state flags. The guy sitting directly behind me casually mentioned to his friend that he didn’t understand the display as it must have “every flag every flown.”

“No dumbass, it’s the state flags of the country we’re, you know, sitting in right now,” I mumbled under my breath.

“That one must be UNC,” he said, I assume gesturing towards the powder blue flag of the State of South Dakota. By this point, I’m tempted to bash my head against the seat back in front of me. I’m pretty sure at some point, he was trying to figure out why Maryland’s flag included a “checkers board” motif.

Thank God for prompt start times, because the last thing I heard was a question about why we had the Australian flag in stage.

“And that would be Hawaii,” I muttered with enough oomph to make sure he heard me.

I know there’s now law about being utterly ignorant about the country you call home, but that doesn’t mean you should open your mouth and confirm to the world that you’ve been wasting oxygen for all these years.

Policy Changes, or Be on the Lookout: A Catalog of Stupid People

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I’d like to take a moment and thank the #2 male, approximately 50 years of age, with a salt and pepper beard, and blue shirt, driving a recent model Scion XD with Maryland plate 5AB2637, for inspiring me on my way to lunch today. First, I need to clarify why I laid on the horn and then saluted you in passing with the appropriate hand gesture indicating how much I appreciated your driving skills. Just so you know, when turning left across three lanes of traffic, there is a generally accepted way to do things. Normally, you allow the vehicle in front of you to complete his turn before you pull around him and cut across his path in order to make u-turn. I certainly appreciated your shoulder shrug indicating that you had no idea why I was gesticulating wildly in your direction. The inability to make eye contact was a nice touch. Maybe I’d have been slightly less annoyed with you, sir, if you were racing to a hospital or even to work. You, however, decided to be a giant douche bag so you could get to McDonald’s. I know this because I completed my u-turn just after you did and watched you pull into the drive thru line (please see attached photo as Exhibit A).

Believe it or not, I mostly don’t care what goes on around me. As annoyed as I am by most people, I don’t go looking for conflict. Unless you’ve done something truly egregious, I’m usually willing to turn the other cheek just because further interaction isn’t even worth the effort, but you Scion XD driver, have finally changed the equation for me and that’s why, today, I am announcing an immediate change in policy.

Effective this afternoon, whenever possible I will be posting the name, identifying details, and a photograph of people whose stupidity causes them to be a danger to themselves, to others, and to the continued survival of the species as a whole. When featured on these pages, I urge all my readers to be on the lookout for these individuals and avoid them if possible. All readers should consider interaction with these individuals to be highly undesirable and a potential hazard to your mental health.This policy will remain in force until I find a better method of calling out these asshats or until I lose interest, whichever comes first. Ladies and gentlemen of the Baltimore-Towson Metropolitan Statistical Area, you have been warned.

If I had a hammer…

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If you were thinking this post would include a link to some kind of damned dirty hippy music, you’re a moron. I actually learned an important lesson about self-restraint today. For the record, it’s best to avoid Home Depot on the Monday of three-day weekends. I knew better, but there were a few odds and ends I needed to pick up. One of those things was a 5-pound sledge so I can shape the stone that’s being delivered tomorrow. The other was a rubber mallet so I could level the stone and use it as lawn edging. The real danger here is the confluence of three factors: 1) Home Depot on a holiday weekend; 2) a rubber mallet in my left hand; and 3) a 5-pound sledge in my right hand.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some nascent desire to start swinging the above mentioned hand tools at some of my fellow customers. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised by the complete inability of people in general to perform more than one simple task at a time (i.e. walking and talking with the person who came with them). I thing just one soul-satisfying “thwack” of cold steel meeting noggin, would give me an indelible feeling of inner peace. Once again my heart-stopping fear of prison and sodomy have kept me on the straight and narrow. Damn you social contract! Damn you!

Better to burn out…

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I didn’t think it was possible, but I may have awarded the Asshat of the Week trophy too early in the week. As I was motoring towards my apartment following the two hour afternoon commute from hell, I noticed a plume of black smoke ascending from the end of the exit ramp. Coasting to a stop behind a gathering line of traffic at the top of the ramp, I has a beautiful view of one of our local gas stations. Sitting in the edge of the parking lot, about 15-20 feet from the pumps, was a car that had obviously pulled off the road. There was fire. A lot of fire.

Now, I understanding the engine compartment catching on fire while driving your vehicle is bound to be a traumatic experience. I also understand that you instinct will be to pull off and run like hell away from said potential fire ball. Instinct, however, should also warn you not to pull into a gas station and abandon you flaming fireball of a vehicle.

The sign at the pump clearly illustrates not to smoke and not to use your cell phone. It even spells out how to make sure that you ground yourself prior to using the pumps. It does not, however, stop to explain the danger of parking a flaming car in close proximity to a dozen gas pumps. I guess there should have been a sign.

I’m not even going to mention the half dozen upstanding citizens who were standing there pumping gas into their own cars, oblivious to the potential blaze of glory in which they were about to be vaporized. I think one of them was even talking on her cell phone. Tisk Tisk. She must have missed the sign, too.