Hysterical, and frightening. Read this on Cracked.com
Ever fly into a rage for no reason? You think you’re calm, but something comes along and pricks your balloon, and suddenly you’re screaming at the car in front of you to JUST GO JESUS CHRIST IT’S GOING TO BE YELLOW FOR LIKE THREE MORE SECONDS.
It’s almost like you were stressed out and on the verge of snapping for hours before that. But that’s strange — you didn’t feel stressed out. There’s no life crisis going on at the moment. Well, the hormones that trigger what we call “stress” are affected by all sorts of seemingly harmless things that science is just beginning to understand. Like …
My pet peeve: open offices. Turns out I’m not just being a diva.
fillingspaces.wordpress.com 
My pet peeve is the open show of affection of my co-worker with one another…hugging and an occasional “kiss.” I don’t mean to be a prude, but come on, get a motel room. Oh yeah, remember to let your spouses know!
LikeLike
Ewww (if you could only see the face I’m making…) Corporate America really frowns on that sort of thing, anything more than a handshake or maybe a quick one-arm hug is pretty much all you see. You might see women hug, but men almost never. That’s just weird in a professional environment.
LikeLike
OMG. My family thought I was crazy when I said the “night lights” are haunting me. Sometimes, it’s like trying to sleep in an airport lounge!! Maybe I can invent some type of covering for them rather than the random socks I throw over them in disgust.
LikeLike
LOL I can’t stand any light on when I’m trying to sleep. I have nightlights in the bathroom and one in the living room, but I try to keep my bedroom door shut (although the stupid cat usually pushes it open to come in). I toss a piece of black silk over my clock radio because the damn display is SO BRIGHT, even on the ‘dim’ setting it drives me to drink. Any sort of glowing lights from gadgets make me nuts, too. I have to block or cover anything that’s on. What a relief to find out I’m not the only one who can’t sleep with lights on! I’ve never understood how people could sleep with a tv on.
LikeLike
you guys are as normal as they come. I’ve always thought the open office plan was the devil’s invention – it’s just unnatural to have to try & work without ANY PRIVACY AT ALL. Cubicles are bad enough, but at least they create the illusion of personal space, and decent people pretend that they don’t hear every single thing that’s said on either side of ’em.
I myself can sleep thru nearly any kind of noise or light (no foolin’, I once dozed thru a pipeline explosion that made headlines from coast to coast) but Fang does the same thing that you do with the clockradio, DD – he props a CD box or a little coaster over the display, and I keep a tiny travel-sized version on my side of the bed – it folds shut and only lights up when you press a button. We are fortunate to have a street light outside the back of the house – it casts just enough light thru my bathroom window so that I can find my way to the commode, but with the door shut it doesn’t light up the bedroom.
LikeLike
I think it’s pretty clear to anyone with more than 2 synapses firing that ‘open offices’ serve one function: that of saving the company the money to build out offices, or buy cubicle walls. They like to try to convince you that it ‘promotes team-building and information sharing’ but I think we all know that’s a crock.
I need it so dark in the room I can’t even leave the blinds open on the window at night because of all the light pollution. No lights shine directly into the window, but it’s just a general ‘glow’ in the sky from city lights, street lights, outdoor lighting on people’s houses, etc., and it creates enough light that it makes it hard for me to sleep. Isaac Asimov wrote a story (Nightfall) about people being unable to tolerate complete darkness. It had become like a thrill-ride at an amusement park for people to go into a completely black environment. They died from fright. No one knows what true darkness is like anymore.
LikeLike
Maybe I’m paranoid after the cameras in the ladies’ room incident, but I also think the open floor plan is a way of letting The Man watch to make sure you’re working, which of course would not be necessary if they’d hire people who act like adults, and then trust them to do so. One of the reasons I like my job is that I walk in the door expecting to have 20 pairs of eyes on me, no more, no less, and I can proceed as prepared for that.
We have real decent darkness at our place in the mountains, but there’s a motion sensor light outside that gets tripped by nocturnal critters once in a while – always a bit startling.
LikeLike
I can certainly relate to this since I’m pretty much certifiable. I have no tolerance it seems. Another nerve hit there Dame.
LikeLike
I think we’re all certifiable (at least marginally) these days!
LikeLike
I have a grownup nephew who, instead of admitting to “certifiable,” refers to himself as a Certified Expert, as in “I know I’m going to get lost on the way over. I always do; I’m like a Certified Expert.” His approach is so much more cheerful!
LikeLike
As I like to say, “I don’t suffer from insanity – I enjoy every minute of it!” 🙂
LikeLike
I hate open offices, how am I suppose to blog instead of work in this enviroment
LikeLike
Seriously. How am I supposed to keep up with Twitter, all my various email accounts, blogs, and work on my novel while my co-workers spy on me?
LikeLike
My pet peeve:
Beginning sentences with: “No offense but….” or “With all do respect…”
Adding a disclaimer to what you are about to say does not put me in a default mood to accept what you are about to say.
I find myself wanting to stop the person just after the ellipses but before they say what they intend to and insert this: “While I appreciate your disclaimer, Consequences will happen anyway….you should be prepared for them….you were saying?”
Informative article though, D.D. thanks for posting it!!
LikeLike
Heh heh, although sometimes what follows those phrases is not necessarily offensive. I’ve prefaced comments to people with similar things, just because I wasn’t sure how they would take what I had to say.
LikeLike
I think the only thing that make me snap for a short minute or two is just inconsideration/rudeness. I could give you a list of example but one that is more recent was after leaving dinner, I saw a young man (perhaps teenage). He and his friend was kicking a ball on the school building wall where windows are in the area. The ball finally bounce off hard off the window. Did he stop after that…nope…he continue on kicking the ball toward the area of the window like he wanted it to break.
I pointed it out to the hubby and told him “what is he waiting for the window to break to stop kicking the ball and run away or laugh about it as it is funny?!” I was so piss about seeing that and my blood pressure I am sure raised for a few minutes and calm down once we drove farther away.
LikeLike
Hi Lora,
I know what you mean. I almost went ballistic one day at the park (the one I put up all the pictures of) when I saw a couple of little boys throwing rocks at the ducks. The guy who was with them chewed ME out, threatened to restrain me… I wish I’d called the cops.
LikeLike
What a prick! No wonder the children act the way that they did. They did not have a responsible adult with them. Sorry you got into a confrontation with that prick!
LikeLike
Normally, I mind my own business. Maybe I was having one of those days where you snap unexpectedly from the build up of stress.
LikeLike
Are maybe you are just a compassion good hearted person who do not want unnecessary harm to come to animals or a living creature:)
LikeLike