Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Vent Thread

Inspired by Chris's Christmas Vent thread, this one is for you to let off steam about all those inconsequential little things that just drive you up the wall. Yes, in the grand scheme of things they're probably so unimportant you shouldn't let them get to you. But they bug you all the same! So, here's a place to immortalise your rage. Most irritating of all, I can't watch the online birthday card my brother sent me because there it is scuttling around.

Secondly - news channels that tell you things twice in the space of two seconds! Typical conversation:

Studio news presenter: "And now we go over live to our reporter in Jerusalem..."

Reporter: "Yes, here we are in Jerusalem..."

Cue me leaping up and down, yelling "I know that! You just told me that! You told me that two seconds ago!" at the TV. :rolleyes:

Takes deep breath and goes off to read some soothing board posts...

The rest of you - have at it.


LabRat

I always loathe listening to a mass of sport reports and they only talk about Rugby League or Union and other sports don't get me wrong I love Aussie Rules, tennis and the cricket but what about soccer? It's the World Game for crying out loud yet it's the most under appreciated here and let's be honest how does a couple of guys carrying the ball across the goal line instead of kicking it around qualifies being called football? Aussie Rules yes, soccer definitely I mean in Europe it is called football and well really Rugby is rugby and soccer is the only true form of football!

Had to vent that frustration maybe with Australia getting into the World Cup this year and the Asia Cup next year will help boost its profile, but I'm not betting on that happening soon.

As a matter of fact, Lab, you can turn it off.

Step 1 (which you may already have completed -- I can't remember): Get FireFox .

Step 2: Install one or more of the following extensions:

AdBlock , which allows you to set up a list of filters which automatically remove images and content. For example, the filter "*/banners/*" will remove any web page item (image, flash program, etc) with "/banners/" anywhere in the URL. A short list of general filters will get rid of most online ads, and you can always add new ones from the right-click menu. (Just right-click something you don't like, choose "Adblock Image," and create a new filter based on the image's URL.)

Flashblock automatically hides all flash animations. Flash programs are replaced with a simple button, which you can use to view the animation if you so desire.

Nuke Anything allows you to selectively remove content with a simple mouse command. Right-click any object, choose "remove this object," and *poof* -- it's gone!

Step 3: Next time you see the spider, use the extension of your choice to make it disappear!

Paul

I want to vent about boring paperwork - need I really say more??

And I also want to vent about employees who do the very thing that I mentioned not to do in a memo and they do it the VERY NEXT DAY! And then they don't understand why I get mad. And the reaction to my anger is something like 'I didn't think you meant me.'

I am a really nice boss. All my employees agree on that. Some even tell me that I'm too nice! But then people think they can take advantage of my niceness, and they don't get that while I may be nice, I'm not a pushover. So I'm venting about people who can't stop themselves from pushing my limits!

Irene

Paul - thank you! That ad has been the bane of my life recently! Yes, I have Firefox, so dashing over to those links to do the necessary. You're a star!


LabRat

Hmmm venting - My grandparents -

I am really mad that my Grandparents were very unresponsible parents to my mum and uncle.

They ran away to Canada from England and while we have ties to England and can talk to . . . they are trying to hide something and tell us sweet little lies about our family tree...I don't even know my own family over there in its entirity

For now though, my one vent is people getting things done on time. After working all day, I wound up at FedEx til after 1 in the morning helping people make copies we needed for this morning because they can't get their acts together. If they'd done it ahead of time, we could have handed the whole binder to UPS where we actually have an account, and they could have made 40 copies for us instead of us having to put the darn things together ourselves.

Oh, I have something else. My roommates. Ugh. I cannot wait til I move out of my apartment in May. I don't even care if I have to move back into my parent's house. Sad, huh. But they are the most ridiculous, rude, drama-oriented people I've ever met. Grow the hell up already. Granted, my parents raised me rather drill-sergeant-esque, but I don't think it's expecting that much of college students for them to act lik adults.

Ok I'm done. I like this thread.
Jen

...seriously...

I've always wondered about ads that....well, let's put it this way. when is someone with a spider phobia going to sue the ad company? yeah, I've seen that spider ad, and it irritates me (but then, all of those "shoot the clown and win a million dollars!" ads irritate me. they're a con.), but for cryin' out loud, they could get sued. As I understand, flashing/strobe lights can sometimes trigger epileptic seizures. but they're also used in on-line ads as well. when will people learn?

Ok, there's my rant. taking LabRat's idea and expanding it..... you don't seriously expect me to believe that if I click my mouse 10 times, that will entitle me to a free laptop computer, do you? :rolleyes: eejits....

oh, yes, and my eternal rant. writing. why can't I be like those pollyannas who peck away happily and crank out 20,000 words a day? grrrr....

People who eat noisily. The sound drives me nuts. Can't they close their mouths while they chew? And why film makers and radio program makers feel the need to make things so realistic that their actors speak while they're eating and so they slurp and slush and gulp and glob - argh!!! I've been known to leave the room just to get away from the sound.

Yvonne

I can't stand the fact that people who are too senile/weak/angry still drive. They think they are wonderful drivers...meanwhile they are hogging two lanes....

Speaking of spiders, I can't stand those ads on Yahoo Groups that ask you the question: How many spiders do you swallow in your sleep every night?!?

I hate spiders as it is...so the LAST thing I need to read about is the possiblity of swallowing them while you sleep!

agreed. I've got a brother-in-law who does it--grab your shotgun and come with me.

I heard it described in a comedy routine once as sounding like "someone running through a swamp with their wellies full of vomit".

"The average person swallows seven spiders a year." You know, I had heard that statistic hundreds of times and it always creeped me out, plus I had to wonder, why on earth would a spider decide to crawl into my mouth while I was sleeping? Does he think it looks like a good place to catch bugs?

Anyway, one day I decided to take matters into my own hands and find out if that were really true, and according to Snopes.com , it's an urban legend!



That won't get rid of the obnoxious ads asking about it, but at least you can sleep a little easier knowing spiders aren't trying to commit suicide in your mouth...

If you love, work at, or have stock in Wal-Mart, no offense to you; I just don't like it. I guess it was the bad experiences I had the other day that made me want to vent about this, so here goes.

Reasons why I hate Wal-Mart:

1. There is NEVER a parking place close to the door no matter what time of day I go.

2. It is ALWAYS crowded, no matter what time of day I go.

3. They never have what I need or enough of what I need.

4. I have to wait in LONG lines no matter what time of day I go.

5. There are so many people on the aisles at a given time that I can't get through to get what I need.

6. NO customer service - I've never been asked once by a Wal-Mart employee if they can help me.

7. Rude employees - never greet me at the register or tell me to have a nice day.

8. They check my receipt at the door, but don't look in the bag to see if that's what's in there. So what's the point in looking at my receipt!

I thank you for doing that research then. I'm more relieved now, but I'm still creeped out by even the thought of it.

When I worked for McDonald's I had to work two years in a Wal-Mart location. My husband hates Wal-Mart for the reasons mentioned above. I liked working there because if I had a shift start at 8, I could shop the hour prior without the lovely customers and lack of stock. That was the only reason I like that McD location.

However, our cooler and freezer were located on the other side of the Wal-Mart and I would always get stopped by WM customers thinking I worked for WM....hello I'm in a McDonald's manager's outfit. Even when I was a Team Leader where I had to wear a black McD hat! I would help them b/c they would get mad at me b/c no WM people would help or thought I was a WM empl. Sometimes I’d say "sorry I don't know where that is" if I was too busy to breath. Sometimes I would tell them I would find someone and I would...however I'd come back later and find them there with no one helping them and they would let me have it. Even get physical.

Many times I used the intercom. It is fun experimenting! I am not allowed to, but after trying it a few times one WM employee showed me once b/c they said, "well if we are not around you should help." Ummm hello I don't work for your company. But I'd help b/c honestly sometimes I didn't want to go back to the restaurant only to get yelled at by a WM customer or employee and I felt bad for them especially if they had a screaming kid.

I know not every customer is bad and so on, but every McDonald's worker I know who has experience with a regular restaurant, a McD location in a casino and one in a WM - the WM and Casino are very scary.

I guess because of the long line ups. :p

The WM managers were evil to us. They wouldn't let us have decent space in the storage area and didn't care about our safety unless we were wandering on the top shelves - obviously. Well they made us put our product up there and we had no other way to get it down. Using a stick to poke at a box won't exactly coax it down. We were the busiest WM location in western Canada and they wouldn't give us more space. They checked our bags, even though I was a manager. I once made them empty their pockets because I found them behind the counter of my restaurant. They had no right to be behind our tills and amongst our product. I will treat them the same he treated me. It was very embarrassing having to empty out my school bag in front of customers. I understand why. . . But once they found out I was not 16 but 25 they stopped. Perhaps they had a bad experience with other employees. I know how much ‘internal theft’ occurs.

The head WM dude was nice. He offered me a job there when I wanted to quit McD because of school. Thanks, but no thanks!

Side rant -

I was sad when Wal-Mart came in because it killed many of the Canadian chains. Just like Home Depot did. With the infiltration of those stores and the amount of US TV on the boob tube and other pop culture, I find the Cdn kids now don't have the same Cdn identity/experience I saw when I was growing up. To me I could go venting on about that forever. What makes me Canadian ?

I studied that in my pscy/history/pop culture/journalism classes and well Wal-Mart just is the right amount for me to make me sad.

Ah, I won’t go into that now. I have to clean the kitchen. Now that is universal unfortunately. . . I will do it with the cleaner I bought at WM and the dish soap I bought at Safeway while watching the evening news from Minneapolis.

Other people had such good rants that I'm going to borrow a few.

I'm with you on this one, Yvonne!!

And ditto to everything ShellyEm said about Wal-Mart! I went there tonight on my way home from work - 10pm and a nearly full parking lot. I went to find black slacks for work. Can you believe they didn't have a SINGLE pair of plain, black slacks?! Completely ridiculous if you ask me, considering a great deal of 'working class' people need plain, black slacks as part of their work uniform.

A rant of my own:

I'm a waitress at Olive Garden (well, currently a hostess because of an injury) and if there's one thing that drives me nuts... it's the ordering of soup. Yeah, sounds stupid, but here's a little scenario. You're the server:

Let's say two guests come in and you're a bit busy, so it takes a minute or two for you to get over to them. When you get to the table, they have their menus closed up and they're impatiently waiting to order. Each of them orders the "all you can eat soup and salad" because they saw the ad on TV and it's a really good deal for $6. You say, "All right. What kind of soup would you like?" The guest says, "What kind do you have?"

Still seems innocuous, right?

Well, what I want to know is: How the heck do you come into a restaurant with the intent to get "soup and salad" - that's what you're getting, no ifs, ands or buts - and you don't even know what kind of soup the place serves? What if they only serve clam chowder and you hate seafood?? Though that is somewhat excusable. What isn't is coming in with the intent to get "soup and salad", waiting *impatiently* (and getting unecessarily cranky because you've known what you wanted to order before you even got there) with your menu closed, and then asking the server to list the soups that are clearly listed and even described in the menu. If you were in such a hurry and dying of starvation, why the heck wouldn't you decide on the type of soup you want right away?

Sadly (pathetically :rolleyes: ), I could go on for a while about even more soup ordering pet peeves, but I think that's enough for now.

Sara (who really does love working at OG even though she wants to hit people who ask the soup question :p )

I send e-mail progress reports home to the parents of my students each Friday as a way of trying to improve school-home communication. The report lists every assignment, every due date, every grade, every zero a student earned - everything a parent might need to know. Everything is clearly labeled on that report! I don't mind if parents e-mail back a legitimate question - that's part of the point. But it drives me crazy when they e-mail back the entire report and ask "What is my son/daughter missing?" Hello!!! Did you even read the report?

I've come to the conclusion that all tourist are required to leave their brains at home. I've come to this conclusion because:

1. They can't all be that bad of drivers at home.
We have a highway that runs the length of Ocean City, MD and people will cut across 2 a lanes to get to the turning lane cause they found the place they were looking for and don't want to miss it. We've got one road take your time working your way over, make a u-turn and go back the place isn't going any where it will be there when you get turned around.

2. I've never seen a bigger production made out of buying groceries than tourist. You would think 2 couples who have rented a condo for a week could buy a bag of chips without taking up the whole isle. It's like they think they are the only ones in the store.

3. They show up with no reservations and can't believe that on a Saturday night in July all the rooms are sold out. To make it worse they look at you and say I know you hold rooms. "What would you do if the President of the United States walked in here now." They can't believe it when I tell them to I would tell the President to return to the White House cause that is the closes room I know available. When I say that I'm being serious. I've seen it where nothing is available within at least 100 miles on a Saturday in the Summer. (in resort areas in season hotels that have rooms will call and let others know so you can send business their way - its a big grapevine). Of course this is like 1 am and they've been riding all over town looking for a room and are mad cause they can't find one. Dude next time make a reservation.

Also I wish people who have children that are not well behaved would stop taking them out to eat. It really makes me mad when people have children that act like animals in restaurants. I was one of 5 children and we went to fancy restaurants all the time even when we were in high chairs. You would see the staff cringe when we came in but at the end they would come over and complement my parents on how well behaved we were. That was because that was the way behaved and ate at the dinner table at home. If not you got 2 warnings and the third time you got sent away with no dinner.

I guess my peeve is so many people act like they are the only ones that matter and are a pain in the butt to the rest of us. We are paying the same hard earned money as the rest of you and we shouldn't have to put up with your c..p or your out of control children.

Yeah, I'm back already.

Something Kmar said sparked a nerve.

Point three about showing up without reservations and being angry that there are no rooms...

Well, like I said earlier, I've been hostessing at OG lately. Saturday night between 5-8. You'd expect it to be busy, right? Well, some people don't. I had several people come in last Saturday night during our busiest hours. I told them the wait was 90 minutes, and they said, "You're kidding me." And they're pissy about it. What did they expect me to say? "Yes. Yes, I'm kidding you. The wait is only five minutes, but I invited 50 of my friends over to stand around in the lobby and look hungry so I could fool you." :rolleyes:

Oh, and another thing since I'm here.

Why don't people count their babies as part of their dining party?

"Party of two."

"Two including the baby?"

"No, but she's only a month old."

Okaaay... so you're going to keep her in the carrier and on your lap when we put you at a table meant for two? Yeah, didn't think so.

Sara (who's done for the night, really)