Get to Know Me - My Biggest Pet Peeves

Warning: Rant

Theirs not much that ticks me off. Moist of the time, I will just mind my own business As LoNg As YoU mInD yOu’ReS. Before I scare you away, I should of mentioned that I normally don’t never ever not write like this except in a non-unironic way. If you struggled reading this as much as I did writing it, you might have a couple pet peeves of your own. Urban Dictionary defines a pet peeve as “Something that irritates the heck out of you.” While some of these are genuinely disruptive, most are ultimately inconsequential. Nonetheless, here are a few of the smallest things that annoy me most.

Honorable Mentions

Before we get to my bigger pet peeves, let’s take a look at one that almost didn’t make my list: Honorable Mentions. These are commonly found on ranked lists, much like this one. And for the most part, they are just filler. There is no reason the list couldn’t have been a top-twelve or a top-thirteen other than “top-ten” sounds better. But the writer just had to squeeze a couple more in there. Certain types of honorable mentions are perfectly fine. Some acceptable ones are items that should have made the list, but for one reason of another couldn’t. For example, a list of the top ten Cartoon Network shows is welcome to honorably mention The Boondocks, since it was technically on Adult Swim. Another exception I am okay with is if the creator hosts a series of top tens and have mentioned a certain item multiple times before and would rather spend the time on another topic. But in any case, little or no time should be spent on actually describing honorable mentions, because at that point, it really is just another often out-of-order item on the list.

Mobile Ads That Are Unnecessarily Difficult to Close

There are three reasons that will cause me to uninstall an app from my phone. First and most simply, if I tried an app and did not like it or it did not fit my needs, I will uninstall it. Second, every once in a while I will go through my phone and delete old apps I rarely use. Third, I will remove any app that has obnoxiously intrusive advertisements. Most of the time, mobile ads are not that bad. Even the full screen popup ones are fine, as long as they are easy to close within reasonable time. However, I have come across advertisements that hide the close button so tight in the corner of the screen that it is literally peeking out of the curve on the corner of my phone. I have seen ads that put that close button at the bottom when the timeout was on top. I have literally had to close out of an entire app because I could not figure out how to close an ad. If an app repeatedly shows those types of ads, I simply will not bother with them.

People Using Text Abbreviations Verbally

OMG, this is so annoying. Why is it so hard to just use the words? Most of the time, they are not even saving any syllables. In fact, “wtf” actually has more syllables. I understand some of them, like the two I just used, might not be suitable to say out loud, but in my opinion, you are still insinuating the full message. (Oh, did I forget to mention this article should be rated PG-13 or whatever the text equivalent is?) The one that annoys me the most is “lol.” You literally cannot say that unsarcastically, unless you’re already laughing. And when someone says “lol” while actually laughing, they look like a maniac.

Not Leaving Things the Way You Found It

Oftentimes I like to pretend I am a spy. Or a ninja. Maybe a burglar is a more fitting description. Either way, I do not like leaving traces of my presence whenever I go anywhere. While shopping, I like to put things back exactly where I found it (or make a display that stands out as much as possible, but that is a topic for another day). When I enter a room with the door closed, I make sure to remember that and close it when I leave. When I take a book or a board game off a shelf, I try to put it back where it was instead of stacking it on top. People like things in certain ways, and I respect that. I expect people to do the same. So it irks me when someone picks up one of my things and just place it back down wherever they feel like. But the one thing that irritates me most is when someone would enter my roon, turn on the light (usually my dad asking for help), and leave it on when they leave.

People Who Walk Slow(er Than Me)

Admittedly, I am guilty of triggering this one for a lot of people. Yet, even as slow of a walker as I am, I’m constantly finding myself stuck behind some elderly individual, a chit-chatty bunch of teenagers, or a business person on their cell phone. Thankfully I can walk around them most of the time, but that is not my issue with this. Because of how slow I walk, I am usually not that much faster than the guilty parties. So when I do have to walk around someone, I would end up having to maintain a sped up pace so that 1) they don’t know that I intentionally walked faster to get around them and 2) so I don’t have to spend too much time walking near them and unintentionally invade their personal space.

People Saying Hi Just As They Walk Pass Me

One of the greatest benefits of the social isolation we are in now is not having to deal with this. Back in the office, I would often walk over to the nearby coffee shop on the skywalk. But I park in the opposite direction of all of my coworkers, so it was pretty common to run across someone I knew on my daily walk. Usually, we would give each other a quick hello and continue walking. Occasionally, someone would wait until the very last nanosecond to let out a quick “Hey Q” forcing me to either turn to say hi back or continue walking and risk looking like the antisocial lunatic that I am. I don’t expect an airport-style greeting from across the hall, but there is definitely an acceptable distance where I can still hear you and give a reasonable response. Because of this, I have adapted a “smile and nod” approach to greeting people in the hallway.

Remapped Keyboard Shortcuts

Two things are definite: human stupidity and pressing Ctrl + S (CMD on Mac) saves whatever you’re working on. I think Einstein said that. Of course, that’s not always the case. I mostly see this on webapps that remap browser shortcuts, but it applies to other applications as well. I do not mind remapping rarely used shortcuts, or remapping them to a similar function (e.g. making Ctrl + S save a post in your app) but I cannot stand when the shortcuts I use most are blocked. Specifically, Ctrl + R should always refresh a page and adding a Shift to that hard reloads it. (Yes, I know the same can be done with (Ctrl +) F5, but that’s not the point.) Ctrl + L needs to jump to the address bar so I can quickly navigate somewhere else. One that applies beyond just browsers is Ctrl + W, should always close the context (ie tab) and Alt + F4 should close the window. These are all standardized across many applications throughout decades of development. There is no reason why they should be doing something different. But the worst offenders of this are games that straight up override the entire keyboard input command so that even keys that are not in use are disabled. On a related note - I plan on writing about mastering your keyboard at some point in the near future so keep an eye out for that 😊

Repeating the Last Word in an Abbreviation

“You need to enter your PIN number to use the ATM machine.” Does that sentence bother anyone else? For those unaware, ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine, while PIN expands to Personal Identification Number. So you are effectively saying the last word twice. Honestly, I cannot explain this one. It’s not like I expand the abbreviation in my head or anything. In fact, this annoyed me before I even knew what ATM was short for. I think it stems from a deep distaste in general redundancy. Abbreviated titles, such as specifying an MPS (Milwaukee Public Schools) school does not bother me quite as much, but I still try to avoid using them myself. While in my research I did not find many other people who are annoyed by this as I am, I did find a name for it that is almost as cruel as naming the fear of palindromes “aidohphobia”: RAS Syndome. It stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome SYNDROME.

Conclusion

Here’s where I am supposed to say stuff like “What are your pet peeves? Tell me in the comments below!” But if you cared to share, you would have done so without my input. I hope you enjoyed the more light-hearted discussion post today; next week I plan on tackling something a bit more technical.