We hear about the freakouts, the verbal lashings, the accidents and many more.
But what are some small things, things that have little consequence but are still infuriating or that drive you up the wall?
Here are some examples of my own:
- People flocking to the metro doors without leaving proper space for people to leave.
- Hearing the same 3 questions at work every time.
- People walking slow enough to pass but not letting you.
I work with doctors who are probably the most well educated people in the world, and I have lost esteem of their intellect for several of them for an assortment of reasons, largely COVID related:
- Asked me how to spell tax, born English speaking.
- A neurosurgeon who cuts into people’s brains routinely barely got the required vaccinations for COVID to stay employed, and assured me children don’t need COVID vaccines because they are immune, tried to work mask free long before mandates were lifted, and grabbed my hand and shook it during a lockdown point where we were all decidedly not touching each other.
- Assured me I didn’t need any more COVID vaccines beyond the two. I have had nine.
- Assured me I didn’t need to wear an N95 during Delta.
- Spelled God Gaud.
- Wildly incorrect diagnosis where he should have known better.
- They mostly don’t respect trans people, most doctors don’t.
- Said his patients are all nuts.
- Cheap as dirt and highly ungrateful for the people that work for them.
- Has a violent case of BPD and was so abusive she was dismissed.
- Tried to murder his ex.
- Beat his ex.
- Did murder his ex.
- Borrowed money from patients twice, sexually abused his patients twice, lost license thankfully.
- Would be kicking the wall in the OR if she got angry instead of tending to her patient under anesthesia.
Also nurses. Why are so many nurses so shitty? Even beyond the antivax ones, I know nurses who would steal insulin to euthanize animals at home (which is NOT humane), nurses who said about a suicide victim “Well she got what she wanted”, nurses who showed me pictures in the act of threesomes, nurses who stole anesthesia meds for sleeping, nurses who ended up in relationships with patients, and nurse managers who I’m quite convinced were sociopaths, who told one of the clerks that she was a body at a desk and easily replaced.
I realize we’re all human but fuck it’s awful how many of them are perfect idiots.
Here’s a really small one: when one of my toenails has a sharp corner to it that snags on the sheets.
And socks…
Ugh… It is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me
Mostly pedantic language things like people misusing “empathy” (it’s not a synonym to sympathy god-damn-it) and “disinterested” (not synonymous to uninterested god-damn-it). Misuse of semicolons is especially frustrating to me; there are so many people out there, who do not understand the weight difference a semicolon creates, and then thoughtlessly use it to seem smart (wink, wink).
Is English your native language? As a native Spanish speaker myself I find using semicolons correctly easy enough, but most english speakers prefer to avoid them and many just don’t understand them. I’ve even had teachers at uni mark me down for using them appropriately. I gave up almost entirely with their use when writing in English because of this.
English class is just a place to go to be wrong according to someone with no actual skills.
English itself is the result of numerous rounds of multilingual people mashing together the most efficient bits of other languages. The rules are so inconsistent that there kind of aren’t any. Also, written English and spoken English are two different languages with different rules, which is why you sound pompous when reading aloud formal essays and why you have to invent emoticons and even start to do rich formatting and change fonts to translate casual conversation into writing.
Take a persuasive writing class at an American college, typically numbered as ENG-112, they might touch on a few points about how to create effective arguments, they’re mostly going to grade on pedantic points of grammar, punctuation, spelling and MLA formatting. They’re not going to teach you a damn thing about teaching, partially because they’re obligated to generate test scores and testing a skill-based curriculum is more difficult than a pedantic rule following one, and mostly because they don’t have any actual teaching skills themselves.
Which is why there is a nationwide industry of your high school teacher teaching you how to use semicolons and a college professor marking you wrong for doing it that way.
Please expand on your understanding of semicolons
Office Politics
Mouse cord getting caught on things. Makes me want to yank it forcefully.
When the mods ban US politics the day after an election.
People who don’t return their cart to the cart corral in the grocery store parking lot
Local council food scrap bags. We’re supposed to separate our food waste and store it in compostable bags made of cornstarch plastic. Which start to break down the moment you put something wet in there, like food tends to be. How hard is it to design a bag that stays intact from Wednesday to Wednesday?!
Whatever, now my wife has her own compost bin I can cut out the middle man.
Where I live you can either use those cornstarch types or paper bags (very similar to yard waste bags). I like the paper bag for the big bin that goes in the roadside, but cornstarch ones for the one in the kitchen that only sticks around a day or two. Perhaps raise the idea with your local council.
I prefer curbside system because it is able to accept many things that my at home compost can’t handle like dog shit, meats and those biodegradable “plastics” that need industrial facilities. Also apartments.
Soap or shampoo that smell like (and better than) food. Why??
One time many years ago, the hair conditioner I was using smelled so delicious that I just had to have a curious taste to see what it was like. Disappointing to say the least lol. Yes, I was old enough to know better…I was not a small child when I did this lol
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I would expect that to actually make you smell worse. Like the scent of a gamer who hasn’t showered all weekend so you can blend in with the rest of your friend group but you’re actually an avid gardener.
Boy do I have another flavour for you.
When people use “different” with a preposition other than “from”. (Different to, different than)
I know it’s not technically wrong, but it just feels so wrong.
Also, when people add a phantom R between two words. “I’m a big fan of cinema ‘r’ and video games.”
Both stem from me not being a native English speaker, I think.
My family refusing to lower the tv volume and then blaming me staying up at night because of said volume on my phone
Neighbors running their leaf blowers for hours and super early or late in the day
I don’t understand why people cannot move as soon as they get on an escalator. The train station smells like piss and there’s pigeon shit everywhere. Let’s fucking move it!
The trope in movies where everyone drops their guns and does everything a psychopathic murderer says, because he is holding a gun to someone else’s head. Congratulations, you just got that person and yourselves killed. He’s not going to suddenly have a change of heart and become reasonable just because you dropped your only means of defending yourself against him.
That innocent people will die due to selfishness and bigotry. And that it is decidedly ok.
That’s a small thing?
Its the only thing everything else isn’t even a consideration
