The Rant and Moan Thread (state if serious responses only required please)

[Dave]

Not sure if this is the right place for it, some posts might not be well desctibed as "laid back", but, wtf.


One thing that gets up my olfactory orifice is the "talker over". Rarely a deliberate thing, mostly a bad, but still annoying, habit.

I was on a course last week and a fellow member, let's call him Fred, answered a question that the instructor asked. As he spoke a related question came to my mind. Fred appeared to reach his conclusion and looked away from the instructor.

I atarted to ask my question, got three words into it when Fred restarted with, "But in the case..." and continued talking over me. He does the same to others, goes off in a little world of his own and seems totally unaware that others are now speaking. He also, seemingly, totally ignores what others suggest then suggests the same thing himself a few minutes later.

My other co-volunteer has a similar habit and also sort of fades into silence half way through a sentence. I am told it comes from living alone, which I know they both do, like me neither has been married. OK, I can see that, but I have lived alone for almost 50 years and this is an affliction that I seem to have missed. Luckily.

People, eh?

After it happened about 4 times even the instructor noticed and asked me to re-iterate my question when Fred finally wound down.

Flippant responses welcone.

/moan

[Icarus]

That trait annoys me greatly. Had I "talked over" someone when I was a youth, I'd have had my ass busted by my parents. 

The talk over thing is standard operating procedure on political TV programs.  Frequently, there will be three people talking at the same time. Most rude, most annoying.

[Dave]

That trait annoys me greatly. Had I "talked over" someone when I was a youth, I'd have had my ass busted by my parents. 

The talk over thing is standard operating procedure on political TV programs.  Frequently, there will be three people talking at the same time. Most rude, most annoying.

There is a slight difference between "competitive discussion" and people who live in a little bubble all of their own. Or are just bad mannered.

[xSilverPhinx]

Could be a cultural thing...'round here talking over each other is the norm, I think. You have to battle to get a word in, which leads to talking over the person or people you're talking/listening to.   

[Dave]

Could be a cultural thing...'round here talking over each other is the norm, I think. You have to battle to get a word in, which leads to talking over the person or people you're talking/listening to.   

Well, certainly just not Btitish, y'know, eh, what?   

[Claireliontamer]

You need one of these:

[Dave]

You need one of these:

Er, one hesitates to ask how one employs such an item. Could vary from loud to painful in terms of gaining attention ...

[xSilverPhinx]

Er, one hesitates to ask how one employs such an item. Could vary from loud to painful in terms of gaining attention ...

Painful. It's obvious you throw it at people who are talking over you!

[Claireliontamer]

Not Lord of the Flies fans then...

[Arturo]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_of_dominance

Also, when asked to think of typical behaviors of powerful individuals, Carney, Hall, and LeBeau (2005) found that those that were thought to hold more power were also perceived to have more successful interruptions as well as fewer disfluencies.

[Sandra Craft]

That trait annoys me greatly. Had I "talked over" someone when I was a youth, I'd have had my ass busted by my parents. 

I was taught to always wait until there was a long enough pause that you could be certain the other person had finished.  This worked well enough until my Dad married my stepmother, who came from a family where everyone talked without break.  It was kind of funny, actually.  We had to get used to just jumping in and talking over for awhile if we wanted to get anything said around Wendy or her family, and in her turn Wendy had to learn the difference between a short pause to collect thoughts and a long pause indicating we'd finished. That was just as frustrating for her as having to jump in was for us.

The talk over thing is standard operating procedure on political TV programs.  Frequently, there will be three people talking at the same time. Most rude, most annoying.

I absolutely hate that!  I tune in to hear the ideas being discussed and the various positions on them and all I hear is meaningless yelling.  This is why I stopped listening to political programs, it was just a waste of time.

[xSilverPhinx]

Not Lord of the Flies fans then...

Watched the movie long ago, but never read the book. Doesn't it mean the one in possession of the seashell is the one who speaks?

[Biggus Dickus]

I stopped to get a coffee Saturday after spending 2.5 hours at the gym when this older acquaintance I know walked by me while I was sitting a table drinking my coffee and looking at my phone.

Recognizing him I looked up and said, "hello". He stopped, said hello to me, and then noticing my phone in my hand said, "You people just can't live without those can you" or something to that effect.

I smile back, politely laugh, and tell him that I was actually reading a very interesting article from our local news about urban renewal, but he scoffed at my remark, in fact he cut me off while I was explaining the details of the article, and then he just went on and on about people and their damn phones and those Pad things, and how they are just wasting time".

He rambled on for a bit and then just walked away, I guess he was looking for confirmation or agreement from me, didn't find it and moved on to his next victim.

Anyway I saw this picture today, and it remind me of the old guy, and how misperceptions can arise from ignorance and unfamiliarity, but his comment did rub a sore point with me, and is the reason I brought up my workout at the beginning of my post.

Here I had worked out quite strenuously trying to stay healthy, and now as I was relaxing a bit with what I felt was a deserving break in my day I get scolded by some guy because from his view point I was wasting my time looking at my phone, because he couldn't see or even imagine that I was simply having a coffee and in a sense "reading the local news-paper".

I mean if I had actually had a real newspaper in my hand he wouldn't have made the remark to me that he did would he, but since I had my phone he naturally assumed I was wasting my time, and what if I was, not his business anyway.

I feel the same way when I hear folks complaining about people wasting time playing video games, yet they have no problem spending their time watching "Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy" on TV, in fact the average American watches over 5 hours of TV a day, yet video games are destroying our youth. (Fox News is destroying the minds of our elderly folk, to the detriment of our country and society much more than video games ever will)

Anyway that's my rant.

[Arturo]

^^^ owned

[Icarus]

Damn good rant Bruno. I find the I-phone most useful, just not for social purposes. The google trip maps are priceless, the news cycle is great, and there are countless other spectacular capabilities with that gadget. Want to learn the meaning of a word or words like deinococcus radiodurans (a biologic that can resist atomic or cosmic radiation)...the phone can tell you what it is. Spectacular ability indeed. I appreciate its incredible usefulness. 

On the other hand, it is an evil contrivance that is responsible for killing some innocent people. Texting while driving for example. That is a problem, damned near epidemic here in this peninsular state.  Instructions that insist that you turn your ringer off at the theater or concert are standard operating procedure these days.  Some people cannot seem to breathe without having the fucking phone in their hand. I do not recall that grandmothers ever had  to prohibit newspapers from her dinner table. She did not have a basket at the front door that were obligatory depositories for the newspaper like she does for her grand childrens phones.

The second paragraph is my modest rant.