Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

Its not fun trying to use the wall mirror and the outlet on a bed stand to dry my hair ...

Really?  It's hard for me to imagine that being a whole lot less convenient than doing so in the bathroom.  Except for, possibly, all the hairs that might end up on/in the bed.

[texaskdog]

Women who call their husband "hubs"...unless they are married to a hubcap.

[kphoger]

Women who call their husband "hubs"...unless they are married to a hubcap.

Our best friends call each other "Husband" and "Wife" most of the time, rather than by name or "sweetie" or anything else like that.  It started out annoying, but we're getting used to it.

[kphoger]

When I'm doing a multi-step process on the computer that I've done so many times it's mostly muscle memory–then I click the wrong thing, or I get a phone call, or whatever, and then I have no idea what step to do next on the computer.

When I type my name wrong.  Seriously, it's my own name!

[J N Winkler]

When I'm doing a multi-step process on the computer that I've done so many times it's mostly muscle memory–then I click the wrong thing, or I get a phone call, or whatever, and then I have no idea what step to do next on the computer.

My previous machine, in daily service until April 30 this year, began freezing or crashing at frequent but unpredictable intervals (typically several times a week) late last year, so I had more or less memorized the locations of two text files I keep open all the time.  Late last night I shut down my current machine after about three weeks so I could power down an external storage drive (software eject is not available for it--this is on-topic for this thread, BTW), and this morning I was blanking on where the two text files live.

[wanderer2575]

Parents and caregivers who introduce other adults to the little rugrats as "Mr. David" or "Miss Kathy" instead of "Mr. Smith" or "Miss Jones."  I'm not on terms with the kid yet for him to call me by my first name.

[kphoger]

Parents and caregivers who introduce other adults to the little rugrats as "Mr. David" or "Miss Kathy" instead of "Mr. Smith" or "Miss Jones."  I'm not on terms with the kid yet for him to call me by my first name.

I much prefer Mr/Mrs _____ over first names in such situations, but I'm gradually (if grudgingly) accepting that most adults actually prefer kids to call them by first name.  However, what I absolutely hate is Mr/Mrs First Name.  Look, if everyone's going to be on familiar terms enough to use first names, then the Mr/Mrs doesn't belong there.



MS Excel frustration:

Say you have multiple Excel files open at once.  Two of them are for a big project you're working on half the day, and you'll get back to them an hour from now, so you minimize them.  Then you finish up working on a more minor project in Excel and close that file.  Excel then decides that you no longer want those other two files minimized and opens them on top of whatever you actually want to be on top.

No, Excel!  I minimized those for a reason.  I'm not dealing with them yet.

[Scott5114]

Parents and caregivers who introduce other adults to the little rugrats as "Mr. David" or "Miss Kathy" instead of "Mr. Smith" or "Miss Jones."  I'm not on terms with the kid yet for him to call me by my first name.

I much prefer Mr/Mrs _____ over first names in such situations, but I'm gradually (if grudgingly) accepting that most adults actually prefer kids to call them by first name.  However, what I absolutely hate is Mr/Mrs First Name.  Look, if everyone's going to be on familiar terms enough to use first names, then the Mr/Mrs doesn't belong there.

It sort of bugs me when anyone calls me "Mr. Nazelrod", because if they go for that, there is invariably an interval in the conversation where they have to ask how to pronounce or spell it correctly, and it's just a lot easier to call me Scott. Also, I have a hard time imagining a situation I've gotten myself into that is so formal that calling me "Mr." anything would feel natural. The only thing I can think of was when I addressed a city council last winter.

At least if someone calls me "Mr. Scott" I can exclaim that I'm giving it all she's got, captain!

Say you have multiple Excel files open at once.  Two of them are for a big project you're working on half the day, and you'll get back to them an hour from now, so you minimize them.  Then you finish up working on a more minor project in Excel and close that file.  Excel then decides that you no longer want those other two files minimized and opens them on top of whatever you actually want to be on top.

No, Excel!  I minimized those for a reason.  I'm not dealing with them yet.

Is that something unique to Excel, or do other programs on Windows exhibit that exact behavior? On Linux, there is a program called the window manager that would handle that function, and if a program started exhibiting needy behavior like that, the window manager I use (kwin) would probably ignore the program's request (kwin's default settings explicitly shoot down "bring window to front" requests and instead subtly highlights them on the taskbar to indicate that they're requesting user attention, which you can choose to act on if you like).

I would imagine that Windows has some sort of window-managing component of the OS, but one of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts annoyances that makes me very happy to sign out of Windows whenever I am forced to use it is the window manager's obsequiousness toward any program that wants to jump to the front of the window stack and get in the way. I also wouldn't be surprised if the window manager exhibited partisan behavior toward Microsoft products like Excel; Windows has been known in the past to contain code giving their own products special treatment by the OS.

[kphoger]

I have a hard time imagining a situation I've gotten myself into that is so formal that calling me "Mr." anything would feel natural. The only thing I can think of was when I addressed a city council last winter.

If my family went over to your house for dinner (say, after a Goldsby roadmeet), I would instruct my children to call you Mr and Mrs Nazelrod.  And they would already know to answer you with "yes sir" and "yes ma'am".  If we then became friends, then I wouldn't expect it of them.  But, so long as you were an adult stranger or mere acquaintance, I would.

[vdeane]

MS Excel frustration:

Say you have multiple Excel files open at once.  Two of them are for a big project you're working on half the day, and you'll get back to them an hour from now, so you minimize them.  Then you finish up working on a more minor project in Excel and close that file.  Excel then decides that you no longer want those other two files minimized and opens them on top of whatever you actually want to be on top.

No, Excel!  I minimized those for a reason.  I'm not dealing with them yet.

I don't get why Excel treats all spreadsheets as being in the same program window.  Word doesn't do that with documents.

[Roadgeekteen]

I have a hard time imagining a situation I've gotten myself into that is so formal that calling me "Mr." anything would feel natural. The only thing I can think of was when I addressed a city council last winter.

If my family went over to your house for dinner (say, after a Goldsby roadmeet), I would instruct my children to call you Mr and Mrs Nazelrod.  And they would already know to answer you with "yes sir" and "yes ma'am".  If we then became friends, then I wouldn't expect it of them.  But, so long as you were an adult stranger or mere acquaintance, I would.

I haven't heard yes sir or yes ma'am in years. Not sure if I've ever called anyone that.

[tolbs17]

I have a hard time imagining a situation I've gotten myself into that is so formal that calling me "Mr." anything would feel natural. The only thing I can think of was when I addressed a city council last winter.

If my family went over to your house for dinner (say, after a Goldsby roadmeet), I would instruct my children to call you Mr and Mrs Nazelrod.  And they would already know to answer you with "yes sir" and "yes ma'am".  If we then became friends, then I wouldn't expect it of them.  But, so long as you were an adult stranger or mere acquaintance, I would.

I haven't heard yes sir or yes ma'am in years. Not sure if I've ever called anyone that.

I do.

[kphoger]

I haven't heard yes sir or yes ma'am in years. Not sure if I've ever called anyone that.

Your part of the country doesn't exactly have a reputation for being the most polite...

[jakeroot]

"Ma'am" and "sir" are also not common around here. Using the terms outside of military settings (or military members) or dealing with elderly people is unusual and likely will get you a double-take. It's considered quite formal and not appropriate under most circumstances.

[Scott5114]

I have a hard time imagining a situation I've gotten myself into that is so formal that calling me "Mr." anything would feel natural. The only thing I can think of was when I addressed a city council last winter.

If my family went over to your house for dinner (say, after a Goldsby roadmeet), I would instruct my children to call you Mr and Mrs Nazelrod.  And they would already know to answer you with "yes sir" and "yes ma'am".  If we then became friends, then I wouldn't expect it of them.  But, so long as you were an adult stranger or mere acquaintance, I would.

My wife actually still uses her maiden name (she has no surviving parents so she chose to keep it in their honor). I've never been exactly clear on what that means for the formal title–as a married woman who doesn't use my last name, is she Mrs Perry or Miss Perry? I suppose that's one reason "Ms" was created. It also throws a wrench in the really archaic form "Mrs Scott Nazelrod" (or "Mr and Mrs Scott Nazelrod") that I remember seeing in my mom's old writing guidebooks from the 1960s and 1970s.

As for "sir" and "ma'am", they still give me horror flashbacks of people flagging me down by yelling either of them at me (I don't think I looked particularly feminine, but the patrons were usually drunk, so it was 50/50 whether I was "sir" or "ma'am") to try to get me to fix their slot machines, then getting upset that I couldn't help them because, as a cashier, I wasn't allowed to do anything but call someone else for them.

Now you've got me laughing thinking about what a Goldsby meet would even entail. My guess is it'd start at the new roundabout at I-35/SH-74, proceed south down SH-74 to Ladd Road (passing the digital speed radar sign), then east on Ladd Road to the new bridge over I-35. Total meet itinerary, 30 minutes including stops. (The 2010 Oklahoma City meet actually passed through Goldsby twice, though there were no stops there. On Day 1 it was along the way during the post-dinner bonus bridge tour, which included a clinch of SH-74B–which elicited a review from one meet attendee of "this is the worst state highway I've ever been on"–en route to the old SH-24 bridge in Washington. On Day 2 we clipped the northern limit of Goldsby on SH-9 en route to the H.E. Bailey Spur and Grady County.)

[J N Winkler]

Is that something unique to Excel, or do other programs on Windows exhibit that exact behavior? On Linux, there is a program called the window manager that would handle that function, and if a program started exhibiting needy behavior like that, the window manager I use (kwin) would probably ignore the program's request (kwin's default settings explicitly shoot down "bring window to front" requests and instead subtly highlights them on the taskbar to indicate that they're requesting user attention, which you can choose to act on if you like).

There is no known general method for preventing programs from stealing focus in Windows, though at the command line start /min will force a new console window to open minimized, and there are API hooks to open windows minimized and to manipulate program icons on the taskbar (e.g., turn them red to indicate an error requiring attention, or show a progress graph) to communicate information to the user without restoring or maximizing the window.

I would imagine that Windows has some sort of window-managing component of the OS, but one of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts annoyances that makes me very happy to sign out of Windows whenever I am forced to use it is the window manager's obsequiousness toward any program that wants to jump to the front of the window stack and get in the way. I also wouldn't be surprised if the window manager exhibited partisan behavior toward Microsoft products like Excel; Windows has been known in the past to contain code giving their own products special treatment by the OS.

In Windows, window behavior tends to be mediated by the programs rather than the OS itself.  Some programs, for example, can be configured to launch with multiple documents in one window, or with one window for each document.  As a result, if there isn't a preference setting or (possibly) a registry hack to tame undesirable behavior, you are generally SOL.



As for first names versus last names, with or without courtesy titles and words of deference, that can be tricky to navigate.  Calling someone "Mr./Mrs./Miss" plus last name, or using "sir" or "ma'am," can (depending on the context) signal upbringing in a politically conservative household, habits learned in a career in the military, or certain types of hierarchical relationship, e.g. sales clerk to customer.  It can be a distancing tactic rather than, or as well as, a signal of respect, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell which purpose is operative.  Paradoxically, it can also be an assertion of authority--think of a policeman saying "Sir" to someone he has just pulled over for speeding.

It also gets tricky when an email conversation includes people of differing status levels.  Courtesy titles plus last names sounds a bit too formal, while first names sound a bit too familiar, yet sometimes people have to be referred to by name to make it clear what specifically is being discussed.

[kphoger]

Using the terms outside of military settings (or military members) or dealing with elderly people is unusual and likely will get you a double-take. It's considered quite formal and not appropriate under most circumstances.

I'm not saying it's common around here either.  But my wife and I will buck the trend.

I say "sir" and "ma'am" all the time, and I address my e-mails at work as "Mr" and "Ms".  Occasionally, someone insists I use his or her first name (the CEO at work, for example, told me not to address his e-mails as "Mr"), but most people quite appreciate the sign of respect.  And, when our kids remember to answer with "sir" or "ma'am", it might take people by surprise but always in a good way.

I'd rather be too polite than too rude.

My wife actually still uses her maiden name (she has no surviving parents so she chose to keep it in their honor). I've never been exactly clear on what that means for the formal title–as a married woman who doesn't use my last name, is she Mrs Perry or Miss Perry? I suppose that's one reason "Ms" was created. It also throws a wrench in the really archaic form "Mrs Scott Nazelrod" (or "Mr and Mrs Scott Nazelrod") that I remember seeing in my mom's old writing guidebooks from the 1960s and 1970s.

I don't think that's ever come up for us, as all our friends and family for whom it would come up share a last name.  Even my sister, who got married in her 40s, took her husband's name.  So I'm not quite sure what the convention is either.  But I'm sure I'd be most apt to go with "Mrs Perry", as that's her last name, and she's married.

The issue does come up when addressing invitations.  I addressed all the invitations to our wedding, but that was in 2006 so I don't really remember how I handled that type of situation (if at all).  It probably would have been "Mr & Mrs Scott Nazelrod", though.

[1995hoo]

My last name still causes supposedly mature adults to snicker when anyone calls me Mr. (my last name). I've heard the jokes my whole life, of course, so I couldn't care less. But I still find it very weird to hear "Mr." or "Miss" and a first name, and I especially find it weird for parents to tell their kids to address someone that way without first asking the person being addressed if it's OK. I never heard anyone address adults that way when I was a kid and nobody I knew would have ever thought of using an adult's first name except when addressing an aunt or uncle or, sometimes, a clergyman (our parish had a priest who was universally called Fr. Dominic, probably because in the 1970s people didn't know how to pronounce his last name, Irace).

I don't like it when an adult I'm meeting, or communicating with, for the first time presumes to use my first name (and I was pleased today that someone I had to contact for the first time responded with "Dear Mr. [my last name]"). I was taught that's rude and bad etiquette because it presumes a familiarity that does not exist. I like it a lot less when a kid uses it.

[kphoger]

It also gets tricky when an email conversation includes people of differing status levels.  Courtesy titles plus last names sounds a bit too formal, while first names sound a bit too familiar, yet sometimes people have to be referred to by name to make it clear what specifically is being discussed.

My general practice at work (I also e-mail people at other companies as part of my job, especially companies we work for) is to address them formally (Mr Last Name), even if they sign their e-mails with their first name.

Again, I'd rather come across as overly respectful than overly cordial.

[Scott5114]

I know I've said it elsewhere on this forum before, but it's relevant so I'll say it again–English is really lacking a gender-neutral equivalent to "sir" or "ma'am", for when there's a customer at your counter you want to be polite to but you are having a really hard time telling which they'd prefer to be called by.

In an ideal world you could just ask "Do you prefer 'sir' or 'ma'am'?" but there are people out there that will flip the fuck out if you dare to imply that sometimes someone doesn't like to be called by what they might outwardly resemble.

[kphoger]

I know I've said it elsewhere on this forum before, but it's relevant so I'll say it again–English is really lacking a gender-neutral equivalent to "sir" or "ma'am", for when there's a customer at your counter you want to be polite to but you are having a really hard time telling which they'd prefer to be called by.

Also for addressing an e-mail to both men and women.  It can't be "Gentlemen:" or "Ladies:".

I go with "Good afternoon" in those cases.

[Scott5114]

I know I've said it elsewhere on this forum before, but it's relevant so I'll say it again–English is really lacking a gender-neutral equivalent to "sir" or "ma'am", for when there's a customer at your counter you want to be polite to but you are having a really hard time telling which they'd prefer to be called by.

Also for addressing an e-mail to both men and women.  It can't be "Gentlemen:" or "Ladies:".

I go with "Good afternoon" in those cases.

A lot of the work emails I've gotten start with some variation of "Hello team,"

A couple of times I started emails addressed to just the off-track betting staff with "Hey horse friends," (My work email style is not that much different than my posting style on here. I got comments from people who said they would often choose to read my emails first when seeing them in their inbox because they knew they'd be entertaining, which, of course, was why I made the conscious decision to not tone myself down too much.)

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I do use ma'am and sir to get the attention of strangers if those situations arise, mostly because I don't know how else to do so.

[tolbs17]

I've seen people just say yes and no. Even yeah and nah.

[allniter89]

On my way home from work today, I come to a two-way stop.  So I stop.  A car is coming from my right, so I stay there, waiting.  This guy is going to stop for no good reason, I think to myself.  Sure enough, not only does he stop for no good reason, but he even waves me through.  Good grief, I think to myself, and I just throw my hands in the air and stay put.  It's a quiet intersection, so no big deal to wait a bit.  After several seconds of nobody moving, he proceeds to turn right, and then I follow along through the intersection.

Fast-forward four blocks.  We come up to another two-way stop.  At this one, the cross-street is a four-lane arterial.  Across the intersection, there are about four cars waiting, facing us, and the one in front has his left blinker on.  The guy in front of me (whom I discussed earlier) sees that traffic from the left is clear, and he proceeds to turn right.  I roll up to the intersection and wait for traffic from both directions to clear.  The guy across from me just continues to sit there with his left blinker on.  So I throw my hands in the air again and go.  You snooze, you lose, but I feel bad for the three drivers behind you, I think to myself.

Am I the only one who knows what to do at a stop sign?  Look here, people:  if it's your turn to go, then just GO!

I use a street with a 3 way stop & a 4 way. Anyday anytime someone will pull up & wait & wait. When I'm 1st in line I count to 5 then I'm outa there.
My daughter hates them even tho I try to explain there one of the safest waze thru an intersection if people know how to use them.
I mean everyone is starting from a stop so even if 2 start off at the same time they should be able to stop & avoid a crash.