I get extremely annoyed when I see someone on my facebook feed insult someone else using the word/acronym "Thot." Every time I see that insult I want to comment, "I'm sure he's so offended being called something that only intelligent people do."
Speaking of words like that, my friend used to use the word "ecstasy" when referring to something that felt nice like a soft blanket. After listening to me rant multiple times about it she doesn't do it anymore - at least around me.
I have a lot of annoyances (seems like the older I get the more I have ) but it's really the entitlement thing that bothers me the most. No, I'm sorry, but I only owe you the most basic respect I owe all human beings. Just because you belong to (Choose your group) does not mean I should go out of my way to treat you special. Just because you think A does not mean I have to agree or I'm a (Choose your insult). Just because you want (Choose whatever) does not mean you should have it given to you. If you want any of the above - my respect, my agreement, some 'thing' - try earning it.
A whole lot of truth in what you say. It's one of the reasons I never yell at cold-callers who telephone constantly with some scam. (We get roughly 3-5 calls per day.) I know those poor folk are reduced to doing this as a job, because other jobs are so scarce ...how awful is that? I either hang up without saying anything, or tell them politely that no, I'm not interested. I, too, worked in the food service industry for many years, and know exactly what you mean. However, as far as personal abuse goes, I got more of it as a medical receptionist than I ever got in a restaurant. It's not the receptionist's fault if the doctors are busy, or their day is running late, or their regular appointments are all taken and only emergency ones are available, or they haven't got around to signing the prescription yet, or whatever the demand might be. As a receptionist dealing with people who were unwell, possibly in pain, and potentially scared, I did my best to run interference for them, and get them what they needed. I never made them stand at the desk while I ignored them, and always picked up the phone the minute it rang, even if I was on another call and had to put them on hold (after asking if it was okay to do that.) But I still took a lot of personal abuse in the process. It was interesting that, although older patients tended to have more serious physical problems than younger ones, they were also more polite, more cooperative, and less likely to get abusive on the phone or in person. Maybe that sense of entitlement that has crept into modern life was to blame?
Likewise, I just hang up the moment I get a cold-caller. No point ranting at them, it just makes everyone's day more unpleasant. If it was the MD of their firm I would happily kick him in the nads, but not the poor bugger on the end of the phone. I was also a waiter some time ago, and I hated it. It was hard work for crap pay; but the customers were almost always pleasant. I mean I had people complain on occasion but it was just a matter-of-fact complaint "your thumb is in my soup, can you change it?", "is it okay if I send you the dry-cleaning bill?", "What do you mean you aren't insured for valet parking, you've just totalled my car", but rarely a raised voice, always pleasant. My current job, however; managing construction projects. There are a few fund managers who simply do not understand common courtesy and I have had the whole gamut; shouting matches, fists on tables etc.
Thats funny, because I was actually contemplating pointing out that it seems to me older people are the worse in the customer employee setting, always getting impatient and explosive. It's that Boomer sense of entitlement still haunting the rest of us.
To be fair, I meant the pre-boomer age group. Boomers are only now getting to be 'elderly.' I was born in 1949, and I'm only 65 years old. I was referring to people who were in their 70s and 80s, back when I was still working as a receptionist 8 years ago. Mind you, I'm getting a teeny bit tired of taking the rap for all the world's ills, just because of when I was born. Baby boomers, in general, gave their kids pretty cushy lives all the way through to adulthood ...and beyond. Many MANY baby boomers, at least here in the UK, have financed their children's mortgage deposits, or allowed them to remain in the family home long into adulthood. Baby boomers, in general, tended to leave home as soon as they could and set up independent lives. Of course it's not our kids' fault they are struggling financially, but baby boomer parents are doing their best to make up the gap. It's sobering to go places in the mornings and afternoons during the working week and see how many grandmas and grandpas are out taking care of their grandchildren, wheeling them around while they do the grocery shopping, etc. Where would the children of today be without grandparents to look after them while both parents work? This is an issue that politicians who want folks to continue their working lives into their 70s need to consider. Who is going to look after today's children, if both parents AND grandparents are working? Baby boomers did well for themselves, in general, and I consider myself to have lucked out in many ways. But we also paid a high level of taxes to support our parents' retirement. It's our parents who had us in the first place, and overpopulated the western world with us. It's not our fault we were born when we were. Baby boomers tended to stay home and look after their own children, and didn't dump them at daycare or with their own elderly parents. Many of us have put a large part of our retirement income into supporting our children as well. And because baby boomer women (mostly) DID stay home to look after their own children—a 10-15 year period of unemployment is fairly standard—they are now forced into poverty as they approach old age, because they were unable to build up enough social security/national insurance payments while in paid jobs to fully finance their retirement. I guess each generation makes mistakes, and we've certainly made some. But we're not the total villains some people want to make us out to be. And it's not our fault there are so many of us, either. We didn't ask to be born.
Hey @jannert You're probably right. The truth is I enjoy pointing fingers and getting self righteous as much as the next person, I just get more satisfaction doing it toward my parents ....
I moaned about this in another post. I was not having a go at all baby-boomers. It is a minority who act with greed. But I will explain the few issues that annoy me: - I think my parents bought their first 3 bedroom house, commuter distance from London for 2.5X my father's salary. The same house would now cost me about 8x my salary (taking inflation into account I earn more than my father at the same age). This is simple economics; demand and supply. But the reason the demand has been so restricted is because most of my father's friends took advantage of these relatively low prices to buy buy-to-lets. They then subsidise their generous pension by forcing their children's generation to pay them rent whilst actively preventing them getting on the property ladder. The government will not tax all profit out of this practise because these people are a strong political lobby/ members of the ruling elite. In addition, the council housing stock was sold off well below value in the 80's and never replaced which just exacerbates the issue. Public sector pensions. These were always unsustainable. They were always going to need to be heavily funded by the next generation's taxes. There was always going to come a point where we would have to shrink the public sector in order to redirect tax revenue towards footing these bills. The mind boggles on this one, I simply can't understand it. I will ignore environmental issues which are more a macro brinkmanship issue between competing economies. I know that it is wrong to suggest all baby-boomers are at fault, they clearly are not. The practises I identify above are the acts of a (sizeable) minority which adversely effects everyone around them, including other baby-boomers. I think it is that they are acts of pure unadulterated greed which could easily be legislated out of existence, if it weren't for the fact that the poacher is also the game-keeper, that irritates me. It grates with me that I am unable to get a mortgage on a decent place when a simple hike in appropriate taxes to make it unprofitable or unaffordable to own unused second or third homes or to purchase several buy-to-let properties could be implemented and solve the housing shortage in one fell swoop.
@jannert @123456789 Yeah...... YEAH!! It’s not the baby boomers or millennials faults, it’s the damn Lost Generation's we need to be blaming! Those freaking people born between 1883 and 1900. Like I mean come on, have you guys ever seen a more self entitled and whiny generation. Like they were involved in some sort of world changing event, like a war or something. But look at where they are now...... DEAD! While we are up here doing the hard work. Sorry I just wanted to be part of the fun XD couldn't resist.....
Every generation blames other generations for their problems. The older generation spoiled their kids, spoiled the environment, etc etc; the younger generation has no manners, no respect, are lazy and spoiled, etc etc. It's always that way and always will be. Just a note about the grandparents taking care of the grandchildren and children taking care of their parents - that used to be the way things were, when extended families lived together or very near to each other. Definitely not just a Baby Boomer thing.
I won't argue with you about the housing situation—which is horrendous. It's true that many baby boomers are at fault for getting greedy. (However I would suspect there are young non-baby boomers who are also in the same racket. ) As for selling off council houses? That was introduced by Margaret Thatcher and her ilk. Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925, so can hardly be classified as a baby boomer. The people in power at the moment are certainly baby boomers, but I don't see them as being all that different from her. They also want to keep the rich in power, and allow them to get richer. And they want to do that by creating tax breaks and loopholes for themselves, while cutting back on public funding that helps poorer people sustain a decent life. AS for public sector pensions—I assume you mean state pensions paid out of the public purse, not pensions paid to people who worked all their lives in the public sector? State pensions worked fine, as long as populations kept growing, and each generation outnumbered the one before (again, not sustainable)—which up to very recently had always been the case. What has gone wrong is that the baby boomer generation is the largest generation ever, they're living longer, had fewer offspring per family, and this is all coming to a head at a time when steady employment is difficult and ordinary jobs don't pay well. Consequently fewer pounds paid in taxes to support a larger population of retirees. This is of course unfair, and should have been forseen long before it began to bite. I agree the system needs changing, and quick. But it's not the 'fault' of baby boomers, as it's sometimes made out to be. It's just sheer numbers. I would be interested in your take on what changes the younger generation will make to our social and government systems, to ensure this sort of situation never arises again. What will your generation do to put people back on a more level pegging? What will you do differently? What will you demand of your politicians once you are the dominant generation in power? Which you very soon will be.
Yes, I might have been extending the baby-boomer definition a little there. I was more referring to the fact that the 80's boom was a time of gratuitous excess and irresponsible short-termism- which resulted in policies like the sale of council houses (and laid the foundations for both the 90's and 2008 recessions). No I was genuinely referring to the pensions of people who work in the public sector, which were excessively generous for many years and are effectively a huge tax time-bomb. This I agree with and is no-ones fault, just a response to war. As for what I will do, I've already done it, moved to NZ. But on a more serious note, I mentioned at length that I would heavily tax second and third homes and buy-to-let properties in order to free up more housing. That is an easily implemented and very effective policy if only the political will was there to do it. I would also redistribute wealth via inheritance tax- again very unpopular amongst the baby-boomer generation, but necessary (this would hit me hard as well but I could accept that). I would reduce the size of the public sector considerably (which the Tory's are doing). These aren't pie-in-the-sky ideas, they are very easy. My view is that the free-market is great- it just needs to be regulated to prevent an irreversible disparity between the rich and the poor, and this hasn't been happening effectively, because the rich are also the political elite. In fact, that sort of conflict of interest has been regulated out of all other spheres of business, and really needs to disappear from politics as well. I would also ensure that the bins were collected on time.
Woo. Paid for out of the public purse...? Or just for the people who can afford to pay the bin men privately?
I can only speak for the US, but income properties are already taxed here at a greater rate. Of course, 'freeing up housing' isn't an issue here. Here, inheritance taxes (more properly called 'death taxes') are 40% after a ~$3.5 million 'deduction'. Many think the deduction is too high, but a single family farm can easily be worth that much as can a person who owns a couple of busy gas stations. I personally think such taxes are immoral. Simple, maybe, but not easy.
The superiority complexes people get over their music tastes/movie tastes/tv show tastes/etc. No, I don't care that you're vegan and that you only support local coffee shops, and your superior attitude about it doesn't make me want to follow your example.
This is relevant. I also think I need to point out that a certain philosopher from Ancient Greece (that is circa 300 BCE) said this. Who? None other than Plato/Socrates himself.
You are out with a friend, catching up on old times, and all they keep doing is checking their phone. I made all the effort to come out and see them and all they do is interact with people who are not there in person. Supremely rude.
Coffee shops full stop...in every guise, are very 21st century (and seventeenth and eighteenth, hmm.) For a proper 2oc man it is 'tea' or 'a coffee, please' at the (dirty) counter. Any derivation is entirely metropolitan, and as if it's macho to sup a double espresso, grrr, a decaffo with sprinkles, wank wank, New York. Go inside and ask for a 'white coffee' by way of compromise and the place rings to silence, the staff look at you like you're a gunman psychotic. Appropriate behaviour is to never frequent such premises or if forced by some circumstances, to loiter outside, making arrangements with twentysomething for the purchase. This rule does not apply to the over 55s who dovetail, link to younger generation mores - like Grandma's pink DMs. As a side gripe I would include people, like bloggers, who talk about drinking their coffee like it's taking heroin. 'Oh my great indulgence and sin, is a cup of coffee, so bad I brush my teeth sixty times and whack my app, I love reading, y'know, eh.'
I'm sure "Bae", "cray cray" and most recently "Peanut Butter and jealous" (Thanks, James Franco) have been mentioned.
This may be localised to Australia, but people who type 'haha' after every sentence on social media. "Lmao so true, haha." "A delicate handling of the odd social commentary, me thinks? haha" "(Tags friend's name) Lmao trueeeee, haha." It's one of those vogue behaviours that people mimic only because everyone else is doing it. I realise that this is hardly new for human society, but people copying the smallest of behaviours instead of being original irks me. Especially for a society that preaches individuality.
Bloody oath. Good arvo, cobber! Also, people who use 'freedom of speech' as an excuse to be obnoxious. Other users on this thread have already pointed out the lack of self-control among people, who blurt out whatever they think at the time. 'Censorship' has become such a snarl word that people fail to realise that we individually self censor on a regular basis. I certainly wouldn't have any friends if I constantly spoke my mind without any thought as to who might be listening. I don't know who it was, but a famous quote reads something along the lines of "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence."
