| Product: |
Room 101 |
| Date: |
21/12/04 (1665 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: ranting can be good.
Disadvantages: it's annoying.
I don't normally do opinions like this, but I was feeling in a whingy mood last night and stumbled across the Speakers Corner category again so figured I may as well let off some steam.
So.... here's my pet hates.
1. Lack of cleanliness in bakeries / cafes.
This one might suprise people who know me. My flat is a complete tip, my own kitchen is by no means perfect, but that's fine in my opinion because that's MY place and I choose that risk. I make sure that I wash and clean up and keep the worktops clean, and I always wash my hands before I eat, and take care over meat preparation, etc. (I'm a veggie myself but my husband eats meat.)
When I eat out I expect at least the same. This also goes for food counters in supermarkets etc. If I get a dirty plate or some dirty cutlery in a cafe I get pretty annoyed, and I often walk out of bakeries without buying anything because I see the staff make a bacon sandwich for someone at the deli counter, then handle the pastries right after without washing their hands - not even using tongues to pick things up.
I could probably go on listing things - I saw a fly buzzing around a counter in Greggs once and landing on the food - the staff just ignored it and served that food to customers.
Granted, I'm not perfect myself but I rarely entertain people, and I do pay attention to the basic rules. Places that serve food to the public should take proper care. When I was in London for a while I saw places there using rubber gloves when handling cutlery, and different people worked the meats and pastries counters. Food was, in the places I visited, EVER touched by someones hands, and hair nets actually kept hair tied back and contained, rather than being just for show.
If its like that in some parts of the country, then why is the North East so bad about it?
If this all sounds paranoid, then to explain - I've had food poisoning far, far too many times over the past six years, so I am very picky about where I eat now.
2. People who don't take part in audience participation stuff, or even clap, at concerts when the artist performing is doing a good job.
I've attended a few concerts recently and seen this one a lot. It often happens if it's a large show with a lot of different performers, or if it's an unknown supporting band and people are just dying to see the main part of the show.
I understand staying quiet and not joining in if the artist in question is rubbish or has no ability to work a crowd at all - e.g if they mumble, always look down to their feet rather than at the crowd, or if they say stuff like 'You guys are great' when the crowds been booing at them all night.
If the artist is at least trying to please the crowd, and is responding to the behaviour he's getting, then does it really hurt to join in the obligatory sing along? Or, if you really, really don't want to do that, then ok, that's your choice. Does it REALLY hurt that much to applaud at the end of a song though?
I'm not asking you to turn into a screaming groupy. Just show some politeness and applaud a good artist. Even if you don't like them yourself, if they're showing some talent, what will it cost you to show some appreciation?
I've seen some performers get bad reactions from the audience - one example was a fair while ago when the people who came to a Maiden concert to watch the support band then started responding badly to Iron Maiden themselves when they came on stage. The Maiden fans had cheered and applauded the support band, but the fans of the supporting band didn't have the courtesy to either repay the favour, or, if the concert was that bad in their opinion, just leave and let the fans of the main artist have their fun.
3. People who suck up, use their gender, and flirt to get things from people.
This example is pretty trivial, but in an online game I play a guy. My real gender is semi-known, but people often forget, especially since my husbands avatar is female. It's just natural to assign the real life female to the female avatar, and vice-versa.
Now playing a guy means certain behaviour is expected. I've aliased the 'laugh' command to the more masculine 'chuckle', and for the most part I have to be rational, sensible, agressive and in control.
I could play the flirt if I wanted, but online flirting and cyber sex with strangers isn't my thing. If I did flirt all I'd get out of it would be virtual sex, or a virtual teasing - certainly no in game profit.
If you're playing a female however you get a lot more leeway. You're allowed to be a useless fighter, you are allowed bad moods, you can act immaturely and call it femininity. You can also flirt to get what you want. As an example a certain female is now in the same guild as me and they are female in game and in real life. They have seduced the senior officers in the guild and used the fact that they are a defenceless little female to get material help, as well as favourable treatment.
If you comment on the behaviour then you are percieved as being petty. If, as a male character, I behave in a similar way, I get called a 'drama queen'. If I continue to behave in the way that I normally would as a person (and which is accepted as 'male' behaviour in this game) then you get ignored as someone who is doing something they should be anyway.
I can think of examples of this in real life too - thankfully not with my current employer but in my previous job where I had a female boss, if you didn't socialise with them and talk about the right things with them at lunch time you were treated differently to the rest of the staff.
I don't know who to blame here, the people who behave a certain way to get things (for being shallow and greedy) or the people who encourage this behaviour or reward it.
Either way its annoying and wrong - people should, in work situations, be treated on merit, not on how good they are in unrelated social situations.
4. People who sing on public transport.
Ok, silly one this, but STOP IT! For starters, you can't sing, ok? Your voice is horrible and it makes me feel ill. Secondly, if eating, drinking, and personal stereos / CD players with the volume too high are not allowed on public transport then neither is singing!
I can't be rational about this one, it's just wrong. It's usually drunks who do it, and personally I wouldn't allow people drunk to the extent of being that out of control on public transport either. If you can afford that much alcohol you can afford a taxi home.
The last thing anyone wants when they're heading home from work is to have the journey disturbed by some idiot with no consideration for other people.
And finally :
5. Thinly disguised white lies.
This one is a bit strange. I work in a form of market research (well, sort of, it's not proper market research) - so, yes, I'm one of those annoying people who calls you to ask you if you'll answer a survey. OK, go ahead and call me a hypocrite now for talking about consideration when I interrupt you guys at home, sorry :(
I don't dislike people who tell thinly disguised white lies - I appreciate your intentions, I realise you just don't want to be rude or cause offence.
BUT:
If I call you and ask to speak to your wife, and you respond with 'Who's calling please?' then, when I answer you, go away from the phone for a second and ask your wife, while I can hear you, if she wants to speak to me, then what am I supposed to think when you return to the phone and tell me that your wife isn't in?
If you really really don't want to cause offence just tell the truth 'I'm sorry but I don't appreciate getting called out of the blue like this and would rather not speak to you. Please do not call again.'
That saves us both from the uncomfortableness of the lie, saves me from knowing that that's what you meant but not what you SAID - if you don't come out and say it then I can't actually note down that you don't want to speak to us, and you WILL get called again.
I am not trying to sell you anything, I don't want huge quantities of your time, I just want you to answer four simple questions - three of which have one word answers. That's literally all I want. I know not all callers are like that, though, and if you don't want to be called, say so. I will actually be grateful, because someone saying 'Go away and stop calling' actually counts positively towards my statistics for the day, because we can strike you off our records and stop wasting our (and your) time.
OK. That's enough ranting for the day.
I hope I haven't offended anyone with any of this. This is just a rant, anything strongly worded probably wasn't meant to come out the way it did. I'd be interested to hear other peoples gripes too!
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