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A “pet peeve” is an action/habit/thing that really annoys the heck out of you. In other words, a pet peeve is something that you really hate. I am curious as to what annoys dotTechies – what is your pet peeve?
Since it is impossible to quantify pet peeves into a poll, this Ask dotTechies is a bit different. There is no poll for you to vote on what is your pet peeve. Rather, please share your pet peeve with everyone by posting a comment below.
To get us started, I will share my pet peeve. I actually have two, both related to driving:
- I absolutely hate it when people turn/change lanes without using their car’s indicator/blinker. Not only is it very annoying (how freaking hard is it to move your hand five inches to turn on the indicator), but it is very dangerous also – especially when changing lanes on a highway. I can’t count how many times I have almost got into an accident because some idiot decides he or she wants to change a lane but doesn’t want to use the indicator to tell everyone else about it.
- It annoys the heck out of me when someone cuts in front of me while driving, then slows down (for no apparent reason; I am not talking about slowing down when a car in front of that car slows down). I mean, if you want to cut in front of me, fine go ahead. However, why the **** would you cut in front of me if you are just going to slow down (and force me to slow down with you)? Just stay in your **** lane if you plan on slowing down, or cut behind me instead of in front of me.
(No, I don’t have road rage issues… I think =P).
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@Michael N Hart: You’re not alone. At first I thought it had to do with the negative cache setting, but changing it made no difference. It might be because a site/server is too busy and you have to wait a while for the traffic to subside, especially with the increase in broadband use worldwide and not all the web servers keeping pace with demand. But it could be due to any number of reasons. Anyway, it’s annoying. Maybe someone knows of a tweak to overcome it?
I hate the way IE8 restores and comes back to the front to render, just after I’ve minimised it and gone to do something else. I’m still on WinXP.
I hate so-called ‘clever’ media headlines that get your attention but turn out to be about something else – often they are puns or juxtapositions of words that suggest something entirely different.
Also how many articles headlined ‘Why …’ ever explain ‘why’, they just describe phenomena x. Then there’s ‘masterclass on’, which has been so totally devalued it means ‘introduction to’.
I hate the way techy gadgets and appliances seem to assume only one user.
I hate the ‘I’m the only one who matters’ attitude of most people nowadays, and especially when driving.
I hate having to choose a boring secure job to provide for my family, rather than bumming about.
I hate websites that want a relationship with you – look I’m already married, ok?
I hate announcers talking over the ends of TV programmes, and banners about the next programme that appear DURING the preceding one. Last night there was a banner, then an announcement over the end, then a trailer, then a final reminder as the next programme started, and all for the following programme!!
I hate the crap TV programmes we get nowadays.
I hate the way people get so upset over comments on the internet, which they see as insults. I once remember commenting on the presence of some people from the US, but used the term ‘Yanks’ (common slang in the UK, although perhaps with a humourous edge refering back to WW2) you should have heard the howls of protest!
Online word games that force you to guess what spelling the Americans use, or that censor perfectly normal words, which really annoys my wife, and so ruins my day too!
How much longer you got?
I hate hating so much stuff.
I hate that when I install software and opt out of installing certain components they get installed anyway.
One example: When installing Quicktime player I opt not to install the Updater but it installs itself. Every time.
There’s too many to state. People do not enjoy life. They consume it.
To cite only one : people who are parked against the grain, which is contrary to the rules of the road (in my country) and who allow themselves moreover to keep lights on!
Oh … and another thing …
Programs that don’t tell you BEFORE you try to install:
- whether they have to be installed from an admin account
- whether you can install it over the top of previous versions and retain settings or whether you can run it side-by-side with the old version or whether you have to uninstall the previous version first
- whether you can nominate which user accounts can run the program
- whether they will run at all from a standard user account
Programs for mobile appliances (e.g. Microsoft Activesync and those that come with phones – I’m looking at you Nokia) often have to be installed from an Admin account, but automatically put themself on every user. So everyone has to put up with Activesync popping up because I have a PocketPC, and everyone has to put up with the Nokia program because my wife has one.
Programs like Adobe Reader and HP scanner utilities that put an icon on the desktop of every user without asking you. The HP Share-To-Web icon on the desktop cannot be removed and locks up if you try to do anything with it.
I read a great deal and my pet peeves tend to be lazy plot devices like:
- characters, for no reason, not telling others about crucial events
- characters not asking questions about what is happening but often assuming malicious intent on the part of somebody, normally the hero, who has never exhibited it before
- completely changing a character’s personality to serve a minor plot point
- the omniscient author retrospectively changing the meaning or motivation behind established occurrences
I have given up on some, otherwise, excellent authors because,especially in long-running series, they come to rely on the above rather than original plotting.
@Jim Anderson: It is easy to lump people’s bad habits under a collective label but to be fair, inferiority complexes are not confined to any particular grouping. For example, if I read your name as Scots, I remember being in a bar in the Middle East listening to a Scot describing all his special qualities. When he declared “Everywhere you go in the world you will find a Scot” I could not resist saying “And ten Englishmen bored with having to listen to him”. For once in my life it was there on the tip of my tongue and not ten hours later. I earned a black eye and a bloody nose but it chased away the boredom.
What drives me crazy is an answers like: “search google” or ”can’t you google?” How many times while searching the solution to my problem, I come across this type answers. I google all the time, and when I see in a search result some close response to my question, I’ll go there and what I see is “go google” … yeah well this is so much annoying, my pet peeve.
Ashraf wrote: I absolutely hate it when people turn/change lanes without using their car’s indicator/blinker. Not only is it very annoying (how freaking hard is it to move your hand five inches to turn on the indicator), but it is very dangerous also – especially when changing lanes on a highway.
I have to cross a freeway on-ramp every morning on my way to the train station, and it’s terrifying because I never know if cars are going to turn or not. (And a big reason they’re not putting the turn signal on is because the hand that would operate the lever is holding a bloody cell phone.)
@Michael N Hart: This could be several different things. Send or receive unit on satellite system, modem, router, wireless users exceeding bandwidth or adware on system PC(s).
@Shava Nerad:
I think I probably do agree with you about people who procrastinate but as I don’t have time right now to get into this, will it be OK if I let you know tomorrow?
Just to explain, Ashraf: I don’t always know where I’m going and don’t see the exit until the last moment. And that also explains why I have to slow down as soon as I pass you to be able to make my exit. ;-)
@Stephen: There is no problem for me deleting the HP icons.
My Pet Peeve are those cowards who annoy people then run away. Also, I hate my computer (it’s so slow). j/k:)
People who take young kids into nice restaurants. I have young kids myself so my usual dining choices are kid-friendly restaurants. If I want to go to a nice upscale restaurant, the kids stay home with the grandparents/babysitter. But some people think nice restaurants are appropriate for 2 year olds who obviously cannot sit still through a two or three hour meal.
Red lights that do not have sensors so you have to sit at the light forever even though there is no one coming.
People who drive forward (pull into) into a space in a parking lot.
Backing into the space takes no more time as pulling in (and is mandatory if you have a long vehicle like a 15 passenger van or large SUV) and is much safer and quicker on departure.
People who pull in often cant drive very well anyway (or they would be backing in) so count on them parking right next to the parknig lot line, so YOU cant park next to them and get out of your vehicle.
Quite a lot of these pull-in people gum up the parking lot as they back out of a parking space (unsafely since they cant see all the pedestrians/children moving around) and take two, three, four attempts to get out, and many others are waiting in the parking lot trying to move beyond the idiot.
Whew, now that is off my chest.
Idiots who like to play traffic cop by driving the speed limit in the left lane and then refuse to move over so I can pass. The points on my drivers license are up to me, not them.
People who drive 10 mph under the speed limit on a busy two lane road.
People who dispose of disposable diapers in parking lots instead of trash cans.
Computer sites that advertise “50 Fabulous Freebies!” and when you click on the link, you’re directed to a page where you have to hunt and squint trying to find the link, or worse yet, be directed to another page. Same with “Download Now” and the link takes you off into the Netisphere.
People who walk “friendly” dogs without a leash. The dog is never that friendly when it gets to me.
The older I get, the more Pet Peeves I have, but I’m trying to mellow out. ”Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a good adage to go by, and being more cheerful makes a big difference as you wend your way through life.
@OldElmerFudd: I heard “those ones” on TV the other day!
3 biggies:
People on cellphones talking louder than they would otherwise, clueless to the rest of us having to listen to their (often sensitive–business people can be the worst) conversations.
People driving while on their cellphones and driving more slowly than the flow of traffic, engrossed in their conversations, impeding the rest of us in our own lives.
People “replying to all” when responding to an email, when there is no need to do so–a major time-suck, when person after person does so, and often seemingly just done to announce to the world that the person is there as well.
Online:
Computer lag/freezing
Malware
Trying to get work done on an unfamiliar software or operating system
Facebook spam (e.g. app invitations, fan pages that try to get you to take surveys, etc.)
Ha, I’m enjoying the WYSIWYG editing.
Offline:
Teachers who don’t know what they’re talking about
Deadlines :/
Mosquitos (and other bugs; I have a slight arachnophobia)
People who block supermarket aisles and then spend eternity chatting to friends, oblivious of others waiting to move on.
Ah, well. . .
Though not as frequently as before, I still hop between the US and the UK and park up in malls where there’s , say, a Walmart at the former and a Tesco at the latter. Now. . .
Parking space dimensions in a typical US mall derive from earlier American motor cars of a width sufficient to seat two people at the front with maybe even a third between ‘em on the bench seat and room for three burgers, two fries, and a Pepsi in a pear tree placed in the footwell.
That seating arrangement reflects the sheer size of the post-war US economy. (And very probably, the car’s occupants, too.)
The car most likely to have served as a template will have been a Buick or Pontiac or some other much-loved yesteryear icon.
By contrast, parking spaces at the UK mall derive from earlier British motor cars of a width sufficient to squeeze together a top hatted driver wracked by consumption and a passenger in the terminal stages of starvation.
That seating arrangement reflects the more or less complete absence of a functioning postwar economy in Britain and the fact that if people didn’t eat Spam, they died.
The car most likely to have served as a template for the dimensions of a car parking space in Britain, 2010, will be the Ford Popular with black cellulose and manual windshield wipers circa 1952.
Drawing the attention of a modern urban planner in a UK municipal authority to the fact that the latest Vauxhall Astra hatchback is almost the width of two Ford Populars side by side yields only incomprehension.
This is because anyone who works for a UK local authority votes for The Green Party, rides a bicycle, and couldn’t give a damn about motorists and parking spaces because they don’t shop anyway but instead keep their vegetarian household fully stocked with home-grown marrows, carrots, peas, and lettuce as well as milk from a goat that is allowed to sit at the dinner table when friends come round to sagely debate the revelation that land isn’t made any more and if house prices will keep on climbing, there’ll soon be enough money to buy a small island off Samoa where there’s no reality TV and educate the children at home because the state of education in this country really is too, too awful for words.
But I think I may just have digressed.
@MikeR: Hi Maikes. Long time no see! There are so many Mikes, I can’t tell who is who… sometimes.
There are Mike R, Mike Brazil, Mike, and I think a few more… LoL
~Joji~
One of the things I hate the most is drivers that do not stay on their side of the road. I had one almost hit me and then had the gall to yell at me.
Another is ads on web sites (I know it brings in revenue, but sometimes there too many) at take other the page (flash ads, talking ones, etc.).