Frustration:
When something excellent happens, only apparently I’m the only one who thinks it’s excellent as the other person who’d think it’s cool isn’t around to enjoy it. Stephen Fry’s Personal Assistant wrote me back regarding a request I made on someone’s behalf. Is it quite interesting? Perhaps if someone other than I mentioned it.
Knowing that people with very busy lives will respond to a polite, brief inquiry or note but lesser lights with ample free time are willing to double-down on their obstinacy and refusal to see reason when presented with an appeal to their better natures. Some website publisher ignored my letter regarding a request I made on someone’s behalf.
[quote=“LearnedCoward, post:191, topic:170”]
I don’t know who this stupid asshole is that ignored your request though. Probably someone not worth any of our time, amirite?
[/quote] Right. He couldn’t give a hoot, so let’s not extend a privilege he won’t give us.
Someone wanted Stephen Fry to appear on a vodcast, and asked who had an address for him. I didn’t have one, but I knew how to get it and I volunteered to write a letter. The letter IS cool to me, because he definitely read my letter and cared to send a response the best way he could. Thanks for validating the coolness.
I can’t seem to do much about this, but my phone number is attached to my spouse’s voter record, so I’m getting messaged by candidates’ campaigns. I want to tell them to fuck off, regardless of their party affiliation or platform, as I’m not a voter.
Cellphones usually have a block function, although I’ve never really used the one on mine, I just ignore and delete anything from randos (I don’t get many of those, but it has been increasing recently). Still, it’s annoying if they come in while you’re expecting an important message/call.
I don’t answer my phone unless I’m expecting a call or someone’s “AREN’T YOU GOING TO ANSWER?!” right in front of me. It saps my will to live, not even exaggerating here, when a scammer calls. My phone is an instrument for my convenience, not a jackpot for scammers nor for campaigners and push-poll firms.
A few years ago there was a by-election one riding over from where I live. Someone didn’t read the map, and I started getting robo-calls – LOTS of them.
I finally called the offending riding office in frustration and had to deal with a condescending dolt, who finally acknowledged I did seem to know west from east after all and that my home address was not in the riding. It took a lot of arguing.
I want to tell them to fuck off, and I am a voter. The junk mail, the ads, the phone calls, it’s all too much. I think being an unaffiliated voter has something to do with it.
We live in a rural area, and the nearest neighbors are about half a mile away.
One neighbor likes to shoot guns at targets. They do it far away from the road and from any buildings. It’s a safe location, and they practice regularly. It’s close enough to hear, maybe 3/4 of a mile from our house. No worries, really.
Except today, I am jumpy, having been thinking about nuclear annihilation at the hands of an unhinged asshole. And, they have been at it for about three hours. They must have been thinking about the destruction of civilization also, I guess. If that is the case, though, maybe they should hang on to some of that ammo?
See also “Calibre cannot, on its own, remove DRM from ebooks. However, it is possible to added third-party software (‘plugins’) to enhance calibre.” There’s a very popular plugin for that.
The following real-life interaction bugged me so much I haven’t recovered:
The Post Office!
KB: “Two stamps please.” Brings out coins from pocket, begins sorting them by pennies, nickels, dimes and quarter for easy calculation.
Postal Worker: “You don’t have enough money for two stamps.”
KB: “I have not finished laying out the coins. Can you wait until we see all the coins before you tell me I don’t have enough money?”
PW counts out money. “Ninety-eight cents.”
KB: “Enough for two stamps. Don’t tell me I’m wrong when you don’t have enough information to make that declaration.”
Hey let’s beat up on Keister because she’s a dumb female she’s not even American who the hell brings in change and makes us do math at the counter we have to finish her sentences for her and tell her she’s wrong.
Company “Contact Us” webpages with disabled Submit buttons on the webform.
Also, JavaScript validation scripts limited to document.write in red text “Invalid format” without a guide to the webpage visitor on how to properly format phone numbers.
Also, when the user is “automagically” directed by a bank or CU she DOES have a check reorder history with by its own automated voice menu to a “valued partner” that will prompt her, after she follows flawlessly prompts for speaking routing number and account number, with “I’m sorry. I misunderstood your input because you don’t have an account with us. Please input your account number with us now.” Pressing 00 does not allow the caller to escape the loop to be connected with a customer service representative.
As soon as my child leaves me in the parking lot, a man approaches me asking me for money so he could “get something to eat.” I had expected to shop at the post office (a different one where no one yet has declared I had insufficient funds before all coins were counted) with the only currency I had, coins of insufficient value to get anyone anything nutritious, but I did plan to make drugstore shopping my first visit, so I tell him I will buy a protein energy bar for him at the drugstore. He says he appreciates it, he’ll be waiting for me when I come out.
I spend five minutes, I can’t find energy or protein bars in the aisle marked “energy bars”, it’s all candy. But I find some almond trail mix discounted. I buy it and my listed items. When we re-enter the parking lot, my son and I look for the man. I’ve given a description to my son, but I for sure know what he looks like. He’s not in the parking lot. We walk to the car, deposit our bag in the hatchback, close the door. I wait twenty seconds. I still don’t see anyone.
I open the door, retrieve my receipt, take it to the cashier for reversal of charge. If I had bills on me, I’d have paid in cash and bought a Real Change newspaper from a licensed vendor. But I didn’t have change. I bought something for someone who said he needed money to get something to eat, I told him what I’d get him, and for hours afterward I wondered if being alone and female in a parking lot means to many, many people without mammalian protuberances that I must have stupid on my face.
Whenever I’ve offered to buy food for panhandlers, they’ve always refused. Even when I’ve had food with me to give them, they’ve refused. I’m sensing a little bit of a pattern.
Did they explicitly ask you for money to buy food?
About 200 feet away from him at eleven o’clock one morning I was asked by a woman with no eyebrows for $2 to get a drink. I told her I was on my way to coffee and I’d get her a beverage (coffee, water or pop) if she came along. She told me she “was hoping for a brewski.”
Once I was asked by a street kid for money for food. I invited him to come with me and I’d buy him a hot dog. He did, and I did. He then asked me for a place to stay, which I sadly couldn’t give him. So once in a while the need is genuine. When people panhandle or beg, they must understand that they scheme to take money that could otherwise go to a registered charity, or to a food bank, or to feed someone impoverished and homeless who actually is hungry. One can be kindhearted without being stupid or naive.
Yes, they asked for money to buy food, but when given actual food, they’ve always turned it down.
I get approached by so many of these people, I guess because I look like I just got off the Greyhound from Hicksville or something. I don’t trust them, and even if I did, I am not in the position to give to each of the literally dozens of panhandlers I see each day. I hope that doesn’t sound too heartless, but if it does, oh well.
