Tag: Frustrating

TRAFFIC LIGHTS SHOULDN’T BE A THING AFTER MIDNIGHT

I hate red lights, you hate red lights, we all hate red lights! Because they’re the worst. They’re a straight up vibe killer. You’re rolling down the road, minding your own business, jamming to your best carpool karaoke song, or gaining some knowledge from your favorite podcast, and simply don’t have time to hit the brakes. And yet, traffic lights don’t care. There’s never a fun time for a red light. Either you know it’s coming and have to go through the long, slow, demoralizing braking process, or you think you’re going to make it and then, at the last second, the yellow disappears in half a millisecond and you have to slam on the brakes since you’re too far to make it, but too close to be smooth about it. 

What do we do when that happens? I scream, you scream, we all scream for it to turn green! So we can literally move on with our lives. Green is just a better color than red anyways. It means go. It’s a symbol for money. It’s the color of nature. It’s what the inside of mint Oreos looks like. It’s 50% of the Christmas holiday color scheme. It’s great! Red, on the other hand, not so much. It means stop. It’s a symbol for anger. It’s the color of fire. It’s what the inside of a tomato looks like. It’s 33.3333% of the singles awareness holiday color scheme. It’s the worst!

Then there’s yellow. A perfectly mediocre color in every sense. In my, obviously correct, opinion, seeing a yellow light is worse than a red light. Have you ever wondered if you’ve had a LIFE CRISIS? Have you ever had to play the will I / won’t I make it game with a yellow light? Then yes, you’ve had a crisis. What a cruel world we live in where traffic lights are a tease. Because not all yellows are the same length of time. Which makes sense, I guess. If you live on the moon! What?! It’s either half a millisecond or ten seconds or somewhere in between. We don’t know.

So here we all are, playing traffic light roulette, and hoping not to get a brake sentence. As annoying as traffic lights are, though, they are important during traffic. Thus the traffic part of traffic lights. It’s a control method. Otherwise it would be a madhouse. Survival of the quickest and the fearless. Enter the eyes in the sky to make sure we all maintain some semblance of sanity during our drives. But it seems to me that they don’t make a lot of sense when there is no traffic.

Not, oh look there’s casually no traffic because it’s 10:52AM on a Tuesday morning. No. That’s a happy coincidence for you – thank the traffic gods and maybe buy a lottery ticket since you’re clearly getting some good luck in your corner. I’m talking about when it’s 3:27AM and you’re clearly making good choices with your life and trying to make it home before you fall asleep. When the rest of the world is asleep, well mostly. Other than cool kids like you and your friends.

If you live in a big city, disregard what I’m saying. But if you don’t live in a place that people fly into America just to visit, then read on! At a certain time, lights could turn to flashing yellows and everyone would be happier. Or, at the very least, turn off the timers and turn on the sensors! Don’t tempt me with a red light, a 30+ second crosswalk countdown, and not a soul in sight. When I’m tired. And it’s late at night, or very early in the morning. Situations like those don’t lead to smart, lawful decisions. As I roll up, so should the light color. Just a smooth beautiful transition where, at most, I take my foot off the gas and coast, but I don’t have to tap the brakes. Imagine what that world would be like where you get rewarded for not going to bed at a socially acceptable hour. 

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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DEAR MECHANICS: STOP ADJUSTING MY SEAT SETTINGS

Like most good things in life, even cars have their downside. Gas is not free. Traffic and other drivers are the worst (you can read all about my traffic thoughts in THESE POSTS). Any sort of service, or repair, is the most inconvenient thing I’ve ever had to do on multiple occasions. Car commercials set up FALSE EXPECTATIONS which is disappointing. And it takes a minute to get all the settings adjusted perfectly. Especially if you drive a newer model, it’s almost like setting up a computer. So many choices, so many buttons, so many console options, so many seat adjustment levers – ugh.  

Unlike some people, I enjoy driving. It’s thrilling. It’s always an experience. It’s a high risk situation that requires focus. I do not, however, enjoy riding. I’m a terrible passenger. There’s not anything to do but look out the window and judge how close the driver likes to ride the line. Car karaoke is fun, but there’s less pressure as the driver. If you suck, blame it on the fact that you’re paying attention to the road, not on your future singing career. As the passenger, though, you have zero excuse. If you’re not about to belt it out like Carrie Underwood, get out. Someone once asked me how I embodied the restless spirit and I told them to just drive me around. Are we there yet? I’m that passenger.

None of that is really relevant, but here we all are. Having read that paragraph just wondering how it relates to the rest of this post. It doesn’t. I probably won’t tie that loose end up. Not sorry. Anyways … let’s talk about the most annoying / frustrating / time-consuming / expensive (pick your adjective) part of having a car. Having to visit the mechanic. Zero part of that process is convenient. First, you have to schedule a time to either drop off, or wait, on your vehicle. All of the car dealers put baby computers in the cabin now, yet the schedule service form is from the first round of the Internet last century. Why?

After finally figuring out how things used to work and getting an appointment, then you actually have to go. Which is arguably worse. Wait, nope, it’s definitely worse. Your car, and your freedom, are indefinitely gone. If you’re waiting, well you just have to find something to do on your phone, or sit alone with your thoughts, in the service center. Indefinitely. If you drop it off, you need to find a second vehicle to accompany you so you can get back home. Then someone, maybe that same person, will have to take you back to the shop to pick your car up after waiting for it to be serviced. Indefinitely.

That’s a lot of time not knowing what kind of quote they’re going to hit you with. It’s a guessing game, not a fun one, but one nonetheless. Is it fine, or is it ready for the scrap yard? Will my multi-point inspection pass? I came in to get the tires rotated, but is the alignment all jacked up too? So many questions. No answers. It’s a fun time. Whatever it comes back as, I have yet to meet one single person who enjoys spending their money on car service. I most definitely do not. One oil change could get me a night at an AirBnb. Replacing the front brake pads are a couple of party kegs for the weekend rager. Having to get the bumper replaced because the texter behind me forgot they were driving doesn’t technically take my money, but mental energy wise I could have performed at a music festival. 

Then, just like that, you get your keys back! Oh, sweet glory! You are now free to roam anywhere your heart desires again. No road? No problem! Hop up in that 4×4 or risk it in your front wheel drive if you’re feeling a bit hellish. No one can stop you. You’re a lean, mean, driving machine! Except … oh, what’s this? Your seat is too far back, the AC is 10 degrees too cold, the console lighting is now on the opposite side of the color wheel, the seat warmers are turned off, the steering wheel has been lowered, your rearview mirror is no longer helpful, and your side mirrors currently show you the ground. 

How is it that the mechanic who had to make the super long drive from the shop to the front of the store where you were waiting felt it was appropriate to adjust everything? Who do you think you are? We’re not road tripping this thing. It’s not a delivery drop off. No one asked if it was acceptable for them to fix the functional part of my car but totally destroy the aesthetics and comfort parts. This, to me, is a bit rude. If someone trusts me with their vehicle, I wouldn’t even think to change everything so I could be temporarily at home. I would accept my brief time of discomfort so that the next time they got in, it would be ready to go. Besides, the transport time here has to be a minute max.

Imagine if you went to bank and while they deposited your money (after you figure out the PAPER MAZE) they also changed all of your account passwords and security questions for fun. Or if you went to a restaurant and while they made your food decided to come over and completely redesign the table layout and seating arrangements so everyone was eating alone. Or if you went to a tailgate (RIP fall sports) and while you were getting food someone got in your car and changed every single setting. Cause they were sitting in the trunk and didn’t like the mood lighting color choice. None of that would be acceptable and you would definitely not be tipping. So how is it allowed at the car dealers? I don’t know. We may never know. But it’s our harsh reality at the moment.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST SOUR PATCH KIDS

Marketing South Patch Kids as candy is a straight up lie to all the poor, innocent, suckers of the world. How do I know? Well, for one, I am not a poor, innocent, sucker and only buy real candy (i.e. gummy bears and Swedish Fish). Side note: chocolate is not candy because it’s so amazing it’s in a class all its own. Feel free to @ me, I don’t care what you think because I’m right and you’re wrong. Yet, for some reason, those horrible bitter little children are “popular”. Let me help you out. According to Google, candy is defined as ‘a sweet food made with sugar or syrup combined with fruit, chocolate, or nuts’. I will admit though, that sometimes Google is not all knowing, so I took my search to the OG dictionary, and Merriam-Webster defines candy as ‘something that is pleasant or appealing in a light or frivolous way’.

Last time I checked, Sour Patch Kids are not sweet … initially, I know they supposedly sweeten up after destroying your taste buds with that awful sour punch, but I think that’s just your mouth returning to a normal palate. They also have nothing to do with fruit, chocolate, or nuts so not off to a good start here. Continuing down the candy definition, they are NOT pleasant OR appealing in a light and frivolous way (they’re sticky and heavy and gross).

I’m just now realizing, though, that the point of this post was not to rant about my major dislike of sour candies, really, the kids just fit best in the analogy. No, in fact it was to talk about how much I dislike people (real, live people, not candy people) that act like Sour Patch Kids. The ones who are sour at first and absolutely ruin your appetite for no reason. Like, I don’t know who peed in your Cheerios this morning, but I did not do whatever it is you’re upset about to you. I’m not some voodoo doctor stabbing your doll person and shouting out curses on you and your family. Believe it, or not, I have much, much, much better things to do with my life. These people are so sour it’s mind-numbing … literally. They don’t even know who they’re supposed to be angry with so they pick the first available person. Regardless of their role in the situation. 

Oh, you’re upset because Amazon’s HQ2 is moving into town? I got this free Amazon shirt at a conference, I don’t work for them – even if I did, you screaming at me (a random citizen) is not going to make its way up the corporate ladder and have the boss hogs up there decide to scrap the whole idea. I wouldn’t pass along your feedback, even if I did work for them. Why? Because you’re unpleasant, and I don’t like unpleasant things. It seems like you’re mad because the store is out of your favorite brand of laundry detergent? I am simply trying to do my grocery shopping. I don’t work here, don’t slam your cart into mine and demand I give you the laundry detergent – that’s not how this works. First come, first served. I owe you nothing. Complain to someone who cares like the fly on that wall over there.

My least favorite part of the live Sour Patch Kids, though, is when they all of a sudden turn sweet. It’s not subtle. It’s not fun. It’s sickly, and too much, and leaves a bad aftertaste. You just screamed at me until you were red in the face and now you want to bless me and my family and hope I have a good day? Well, ok, thank you for that, but it feels a little too late at this point if you know what I’m saying. I’ll hope your day gets better to the point where your blood pressure drops back into a healthy range. And I’ll hope that your face returns to a normal skin color and not one of a lobster. But other than that, I hope I never cross paths with you again. Long story short, people who act this way are sour, then sweet, and overall slightly childish so that makes them Sour Patch Kids … ugh.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who is a Sour Patch Kid, tell them to take a hike – they don’t belong in the candy aisle. Thanks for reading!

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YES, YOU CAN MAKE A TURN WITHOUT COMING TO A COMPLETE STOP

If bad drivers are my pet peeve, slow turners aggravate me to no end. We live in a society that puts high value on fast – fast food, fast service, fast relief, fast workouts, etc. Yet, for some reason, a significant portion of people don’t believe the fast mindset should apply to turning. Sure, high speed turns are probably not the safest option, but make a normal paced one at the very least. Why do certain people come to an almost complete stop before going through the full motion? What is happening here? Turns are not stops. They are simply a way to change the direction your front bumper is facing. 

Is it a turn radius issue? Because I believe that even older cars are still fully capable of making a regular turn with some sort of speed on the wheels. If, however, you opt to only partially turn the wheel then yes, that certainly is a turn radius issue, but a user generated one and not a mechanical oversight. If you turn the wheel all the way, though, it’s fascinating how efficiently your car will pivot without you having to stop and readjust the wheel alignment somewhere else. Once moving, simply remove your foot from the gas pedal, turn the wheel (not partially, get that crap out of here), and accelerate into the turn. Otherwise you’re holding up traffic and making people angry. Horn angry in a lot of cases. 

There’s three main issues with slow turners:

  1. They feel a need to basically stop completely at each turn – this is rarely necessary
  2. They don’t give into the turn radius – your car can handle it, it’s been well tested
  3. They finally complete a turn and fail to pick up any sort of speed out of it

Needless to say, slow turners are not destined for any sort of vehicle sport. Legal or otherwise. As previously mentioned, knowing the difference between a Stop sign and a Yield sign should be part of the driving test. They are NOT the same thing. Likewise, a turn is not always at a Stop sign. And when it’s not, drivers behind you are not expecting a stop, or anything under 10 MPH honestly. Half the speed limit sure. But half of that?! No. Get out. If it happens to be a Stop sign, please refer to my lesson on handling those HERE.

I think another key miss on turns is the acceleration portion of it. As much as slow turners test my patience, there are cases when it’s necessary. If it’s a narrow driveway and there’s a car waiting to come out. If there’s a steep curb. If the angle is 90 degrees, or less. If there is an animal crossing, or a pedestrian. That’s pretty much it, though. Those do not occur 100% of the time. Anyways, once we have finally turned, it’s important to then add speed to make up for what was lost when attempting a safe turn. And I don’t mean a tap on the gas pedal. Hit it like you’re trying to merge onto a highway. Get up to speed! How are you going to turn like someone who doesn’t have power steering capabilities, then maintain that tragically slow turn speed for the next mile?! Oh my … don’t even get me started on speed limits. Not a suggestion. Not really the maximum. If we’re being transparent, speed limits are a minimum limit between the law and what police will comfortably allow you to get away with.

Long story short, successful turns happen around 50% of the speed limit, maximizing the car’s turn radius (that was something you looked at when purchasing it after all, surely), and then accelerating. Is that so hard? No. It’s three things. You remember three things all the time without realizing it probably. For example, you remembered to like this post, subscribe to the blog, and follow TRP on Twitter.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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JOB DESCRIPTIONS ARE UNREALISTIC

Job hunting is fun – said no one ever. Trying to find a job is a job. A full-time position in resume crafting, cover letter tailoring, interview prepping, interview clothes finding (I can’t remember the last time I wore anything nicer than jeans, so it’s a full on treasure hunt to the ends of my drawers) … and that’s after you find one you’re qualified for. Investigating all the Internet hiding spots of open positions is it’s own adventure. Between job sites, company career pages, recruiters, freelance profiles, Craigslist propositions, etc. there’s a lot of “options”. Or so they want you to believe. On second thought, I would say it’s probably not safe to take a multi-million dollar a week salary doing basically nothing for someone you’ve never before interacted with out in the middle of South Dakota from a Craigslist proposition.

PSA Recap: Craigslist may not be a viable place to find a job. One less thing to stress about, then! You’re welcome. That, unfortunately doesn’t do much to diminish the stress from all the legit sites out there. Let’s break down the various ways one can find a job to apply for, and hopefully, get paid for. The original job hunt where you spend time searching all the different variations that one specific job could have as a title and attempt to filter through the results. Filtering by location, experience level, salary, company, etc. Filters for everything that still, somehow, return 10’s of thousands of results. What? I thought that was the point of filtering? To narrow down the list I had to go through? To, you know, make it easier for me to become employed? And contribute to society? And be an “adult”? Clearly, I’ve been confused about the point of a filter, or the ones on job sites simply don’t work.

If sifting through endless postings, most of which seem to be very outdated, isn’t your jam, lucky you! Recruiters will certainly be in touch once you turn on your ‘I’m available!’ button online. It’s a lot like online dating where they try to win you over and get you to apply for their job (heart) so they can get paid (be happy forever). Similar to online dating, they often present opportunities that are well out of your league. Oh, I see this position is senior level and requires a minimum of 8 years professional experience. I haven’t been out of college that long, but do you think they would take my high school parking attendant position into consideration? Do they even look at your resume before reaching out? Hmm, interesting, this is a position that requires a skill set that I, not only have zero experience in, but up until today have not even heard about, so are they looking for a student? Because that’s what I would be … a very expensive student. Like the college model, but flipped! On second thought, yes, please submit my name.

If you’re impatient, and know where you want to work, you can bypass all these middlemen and go straight to the source: the company careers page. At which point you can submit your application right then and there. Assuming your resume is up to date and has every single action key word from the job description somewhere so the automated hiring robot doesn’t fire you immediately. Then your cover letter has to not only repeat the buzzwords, but elaborate on them. Do a little research, find something about the company you can throw in there so they think you really, really want to work for them and them alone. Once again, make sure Hiring Howard the robot doesn’t do a 6 second scan and find nothing of interest to him, thus eliminating all current and future chances of you getting an initial phone screen. All that work for a company to send you an automated ‘thanks, but hard pass’ email. 

Basically, job hunting sucks. After you find a listing that contains qualifications you almost fully meet, or 75% meet, or really, in today’s market, 17% meet, and you write your best little novels of your professional experience, maybe, just maybe, you get a phone interview with HR. Or the company’s recruiter. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Then there’s interviews on interviews on interviews, maybe a skills assessment thrown in for fun, because references or past experience is not enough to vouch for you. Then you finally get an offer and you’re all excited because you won’t be part of the COVID unemployment statistic any longer! Only to find out they want to pay you $10 an hour to checkout groceries at the local supermarket. An excellent use of your college degree, student loan debt, and countless hours gaining “experience” at a big boy job.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this and want to share it with them, that would seriously mean a lot to me. I’m so grateful to all the current readers and subscribers. If you want to get these in your inbox twice weekly don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks for reading!

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