You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

[ulthar]

Volunteer organization. Standard argument for deflecting criticism or unwanted questions.

"Nobody's getting paid to do this you know. We don't have to be here. How dare you say such things about these people who are here out of the goodness of their hearts."

A real BS artist can take a highly specific complaint about leadership and turn it into a slam against the whole organization.

Yeah, and the funny thing is that I was not even complaining about leadership but merely asking which statement is TRUE: "We have no money" or "We have over $3000."  Only one can be.

I did follow up with "and if it's "we have no money" then "Where did it go?"  The publicly reported expenses were to the tune of a few hundred, not thousands.  I think, as one paying into the system, that such a question is reasonable to ask.  Silly me.

Oh well.  Onward and upward.  It's past time to move on (once I get my children out of the time commitment we made...which will be over next week).

Thanks, all.

[Allhallowsday]

How about when you ask a question in a group and get every answer except to the question you asked...then end up looking (and feeling) like the bad guy, or worse, for pressing the issue...

Story of my life. 
(You are long-winded, though.)

[Pacman000]

Back to things that grind my gears -

CHIGGERS!!!! Can't see them, can't smell them, can't touch them - but MAN, can you feel them!!!!!

YES!!!

[El Misfit]

On Youtube, since I have an account, people keep sending me vids and keep adding me as a conact. Look, the only way your going to get my attention is if you specifically PM via my channel. NOW STOP!

[Doggett]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

[AndyC]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

That's a lot of people, and they do get annoying fast.

Also, and this is especially true when it comes to politics, people who admit they don't know much about something, but feel they must have an opinion anyway. They usually don't even go to the trouble of forming their own half-baked opinion, but rather resort to parroting stuff they've heard other people say.

[ghouck]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

This 100%. As most of you know I work in a prison, and it seems people that have never set foot in one think they know everything about how things inside should be done, and that the people actually there know nothing. What's worse is someone lays out a severely flawed plan, they almost always resort to "you're just arguing for the sake of arguing" when you try and point out that it simply does not work like that and why. I get a laugh out of much of it and have learned to not even bother thinking about how dumb much of it is. I had someone, a family member, tell me "The prisoners should get just enough food that they are fit as a horse, and not a bit more". I'd really like to see how that can be done without creating more problems and cost more than the system we use.

[AndyC]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

I had someone, a family member, tell me "The prisoners should get just enough food that they are fit as a horse, and not a bit more". I'd really like to see how that can be done without creating more problems and cost more than the system we use.

Sure. All you have to do is calculate appropriate portion sizes for everyone, measure out the correct portions for them at every meal, seize and carefully ration any snacks or treats they might get their hands on, make sure nobody's cheating, put down the ensuing riot, defend the policy in court against various human rights groups, continuously monitor everyone's health and activity level and fine tune their portions. Oh, and take great care in purchasing and preparing the food so there are absolutely no leftovers. What could be simpler? The system would be so much more efficient without naysayers always defending the status quo.

[Raffine]

Newt - click the "Compatibility View" icon at the top of your browser.  That'll fix it.

Back to things that grind my gears -

CHIGGERS!!!! Can't see them, can't smell them, can't touch them - but MAN, can you feel them!!!!!

Chiggers are good for one thing - if you have annoying Big City relatives or visitors in town (most commonly from Up North) they are easily convinced that even on the hottest, most humid of southern summer days if they wear long jeans and wrap their lower legs in aluminum foil they can avoid the horrors of chigger bites. 

They'll believe you, too

[Rev. Powell]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

One of my favorite examples of this phenomenon is consumers who complain that they think the price of something they want to buy is too high.  "If they lowered the price [to what I want to pay] they'd make a lot more money!"

[El Misfit]

I really hate .rar files, why do I have to pay for that stuff when it's really nothing that special?!

[ghouck]

I really hate .rar files, why do I have to pay for that stuff when it's really nothing that special?!

Yea, .rar files were useful back when usenet was popular and also when floppy discs were used, but now they're largely pointless. Also, use 7zip, it's free.

[ghouck]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

I had someone, a family member, tell me "The prisoners should get just enough food that they are fit as a horse, and not a bit more". I'd really like to see how that can be done without creating more problems and cost more than the system we use.

Sure. All you have to do is calculate appropriate portion sizes for everyone, measure out the correct portions for them at every meal, seize and carefully ration any snacks or treats they might get their hands on, make sure nobody's cheating, put down the ensuing riot, defend the policy in court against various human rights groups, continuously monitor everyone's health and activity level and fine tune their portions. Oh, and take great care in purchasing and preparing the food so there are absolutely no leftovers. What could be simpler? The system would be so much more efficient without naysayers always defending the status quo.

Don't forget the part about keeping the stronger from taking from the weaker.

[AndyC]

People who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

I had someone, a family member, tell me "The prisoners should get just enough food that they are fit as a horse, and not a bit more". I'd really like to see how that can be done without creating more problems and cost more than the system we use.

Sure. All you have to do is calculate appropriate portion sizes for everyone, measure out the correct portions for them at every meal, seize and carefully ration any snacks or treats they might get their hands on, make sure nobody's cheating, put down the ensuing riot, defend the policy in court against various human rights groups, continuously monitor everyone's health and activity level and fine tune their portions. Oh, and take great care in purchasing and preparing the food so there are absolutely no leftovers. What could be simpler? The system would be so much more efficient without naysayers always defending the status quo.

Don't forget the part about keeping the stronger from taking from the weaker.

People who push ideas they haven't thought through. Is that a separate peeve or part of the same one?

It's especially annoying when the great idea being pushed is nothing new.

Back when I used to sit on the committee for a big local street party, somebody would come along every year proposing things that had been hashed out many times before, and found to be impractical. The big one every year was letting minors into the beer garden. This beer garden held about a thousand people, and the only barrier around it was a plastic snow fence. Security was two cops and a couple dozen volunteers. There was just no way we could do it that addressed all the issues of safety, liability and underage drinking. And the place was packed with just the adults in it anyway, and they were the ones we made money off of.

Every year, we got people who thought it was ridiculous that their family fun couldn't include sitting around drinking beer. It was just hugely unfair to them that they should be limited to just the live music, dancing, food, soft drinks, games and prize draws. And they came to us with the same ideas of hand stamps and wrist bands and whatnot that we'd already thoroughly discussed and investigated and rejected more than once before. Never occured to them that they were proposing some pretty obvious stuff, and we'd be doing it already if it was as simple as they believed.

[indianasmith]

I recently joined Facebook, and one of my old High School buddies is on there.  He is constantly posting an absolute barrage of political and historical posts that are contradictory and many of them flat out untrue - most recently, he said that Union Cavalry came through south Texas after the Civil War and hung 55 Southerners who would not swear allegiance to the Union - in fact, it was CONFEDERATE Cavalry that lynched 55 Unionists, including women and children, for refusing to swear allegiance to the Confederacy.  He has very strong opinions about a variety of topics that he has zero knowledge of, and you guys know me - I simply can't walk away from that sort of thing!  But the incredible flood of ignorance and prejudice is overwhelming at times!