start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3

there's a war on.

continued from:
Yippee-IA, Motherf***ers! IRRATIONALLY ANGRY PT. 2: Irrationally Angrier

this is definitely an innocuous thing and it makes me more mildly annoyed than IA, but i don't like when people's facebook comments are nothing more than them tagging other people. put it on your friend's wall or send a private message. comment threads are for actual comments.

Tweets from highly and justly esteemed writers which are noting but their next bookstore signing, and (barf) the most asskissing, "now blurb meee" kind of blurbs (retweeted by blurbee of course) Cmon gimmee freebie culture dammit! Comedians even worse but ft

Musicians not as bad except some are stupid, tweetwise anyway

i find myself getting very ia at people who dont interrogate conversation, who just wait to talk and continue to talk talk talk and barely acknowledge other contributions

i like conversation when it is like a game of tennis. i do not enjoy being the backyard wall against which you repeatedly smash your 'conversation'

a) never ever go on facebook; it is the absolute worst

b) unless you are drunk and desperately seeking human contact; even then it will be a mistake

c) would totally become unhelpfully drunk with jbr/dow/veg tho!

d) first round's on veg

all round to my place for fap :D

annual rolling threads that needn't be annual

-pizza places that don't sell pizza by the slice

(I politely walked out of two pizza places in one day because the first one didn't sell slices after 6 pm and the second one told me there'd be a 15 minute wait because "our slicing pizza is still in the oven.' this was the one time in my life I was tempted to get on Yelp and write some irate reviews)

overly tailored tshirts on casual friday (ie neatly rolled up sleeves, tucked in etc)

just relax and wear a damn tshirt.

Needing to work out if the zip I used in the construction of a pair of jeans last year that I wear regularly or if I just keep forgetting to zip it up. Keep finding it down anyway. So just wondering if it's the zip or my memory.
& it would be the pair of jeans that needs a special needle to sew the fabric.

Wondering how long I'll have to wait until I can comfortably collect a shelving unit without being absolutely p-ed on trying to get it home. Weather is atrocious for last few days and I need to transport this flat pack I bought. Waiting for an actual break in bad weather.

That was supposed to say about whether a zip needed replacing or if my memory was going. Looks like the latter if I forgot to put in the bit about replacing. & i only made the jeans about 3 or 4 months ago so it should hopefully not mean a zip needed replacing yet. Keep finding myself flying low though.

Also trying to work out which side of the fabric i'm using for a pair of tartan jeans should be the outside/inside since they look very similar. & I don't want to get it wrong throughout. Guess that would at least be consistent though.

Stevolende, I have a question about jeans fly covers. Mine constantly bunch up, exposing the top part of the zipper. I have considered that the reasons might be:
- waist is too tight (but it happens on looser waists, too)
- my gut is pushing down on the waistband
- the button hole has gotten loose, allowing the top flap to sag (though I have tried sewing up the button hole without success, possibly due to my lack of skill and understanding)

Any advice on how to treat this problem? Some kind of insert to stiffen the flap?

Here is a pic of the problem.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8569/16069669409_693c9d1c35.jpg

And so it's on topic: this folded flap makes me SO IRRATIONALLY ANGRY

I think I just tend to wear shirts outside my jeans so it's covered up. Will think about it but not sure offhand.

Might be that you need to make sure you've ironed the fly flap. BUt probably not. I don't know if I know enough about construction and subsequent pressures to answer. But could be that it would be good for me to be aware of that for future knowledge.

I've made like 10 pairs of jeans so far so it's still early days. & I'm not sure how successful they all are. Found out that some I'd made some months back really were too large at the waistband. Being largely self-taught I'm not 100% sure what solutions are.

i don't like when people's facebook comments are nothing more than them tagging other people. put it on your friend's wall or send a private message. comment threads are for actual comments.

THIS. When the hell did this kick off? It is irritating. Ive clicked on comments threads that are nowt but tag-ins. Ive even had friends of mine tag me in some other random persons thread. I ignored the callout. PM me or GTFO.

start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3">Karl Malone

Online sellers who aren't satisfied with the fact that you purchased a product from them and did not try to return it or complaint about it, but hassle you RELENTLESSLY to leave feedback, tell us what you think, post about us on social media, blah blah blah

FUCK YOU I gave you money. You gave me a product. We're not married now. I don't owe you anything. I don't have to go to your parents' house for Thanksgiving and I don't have to write a review of your GOD DAMN cocktail shaker. Fuck.

Also:

I was printing out my parents boarding passes from Spirit Airlines last night and they offered the normal nickel-and-dime-you-to-death services and the option to voluntarily pay an additional $1 or $5 to help the airline be more green.

So not a service, just some random fucking guilty bullshit about how if we want this airline to be more environmentally friendly, give us extra money. We're already paying extra money to check a bag and have more leg room than a chicken a 12-by-12 factory farming crate, and now these fuckers have the nerve to try to extort money for their environmental initiative? I'm still so angry about that I can barely form a coherent objection to it.

I'm underemployed right now working as a temp in a law firm.. I got a ton of overtime last week but I am FUCKING FURIOUS because I HATE overtime and I hate my line of work because Im subject to the whims of capricious lawyers who dont give a fuck about my life or free time (or common sense/decency). The irony being I'm making time and a half and have a bunch more money than I would yet I am still FUCKING FURIOUS because theres a lot more overtime in the future.

It also doesnt help that because I'm a temp I'm realizing about 2/3ds of what my employer is paying the temp agency, which is basically the same amont of money I used to make like ten fucking years ago.

thanks obama

^^^great CSR, there, carl. *screams*

I was a participant in the following exchange last week:

Cashier: 'Thanks for shopping with us. Can I take your e-mail address?'
Me: 'No...'

Hate it when I'm too fast for a website. Site loads, I put the cursor on something like "SEARCH" and click, but in that split second between those two actions, the site has loaded up just a little bit more and I wind up clicking on something like "CONTACT US".

When I started at TCS they encouraged us to ask ppl for their email addresses at the register. At first they said it like, "Hey, people might want to know when we have sales! Just ask, if they say no, that's fine obvs." By the time I left they were offering positive incentives to workers who got the highest percentages of ppl to give them an email. I got the feeling negative incentives were right around the corner.

Radio Shack has been really obnoxious about the email stuff for years

lol Radio Shack was way ahead of the curve, they used to ask for your address years ago

I just had one of those, cash purchase of an overpriced-yet-undeniably-effective hair care product for one of my daughters from a salon I visit for no other purpose.

"What's your last name?" "Is it 'Dusty' Perry?" "I'm supposed to ask." "How do you spell your last name?" "Who normally does your hair here?" Ha ha ha, who does my greying, thinning hair.

Canada Goose Parkas

It also doesnt help that because I'm a temp I'm realizing about 2/3ds of what my employer is paying the temp agency

Not to stoke any further IA, but it's possible that you are grossly overestimating the cut that your temp agency is willing to part with.

Very true. I used to be temped for Accounts Payable jobs, so the most hilarious thing to me was knowing the 'big secret' of exactly how much the company was paying for my services because I was the one processing the bill! (Of course temp agencies never ever want their temps to know this stuff).

I recall more than one job where I got hourly $13, and the agency was getting $22, and that this ratio was pretty usual, so, I got more than half, but less than 2/3 of the payout.

However, and this really ticked me off, one job that was largely funded by taxpayer dollars paid me way less than half of the outrageous sum the temp agency got! I think I got $9 out of $25 bucks on that one! No business like soaking the people.

temp agencies take that much?! damn.

i guess companies will pay to screw people out of benefits

Most of the times I was ever offered to 'go perm' it was usually with a pay cut from what I had been getting as a temp ('but you'll get benefits') so, no, thanks.

One reason I did temp for a long time was that the pay rates had at least something to do with demand, whereas permanent positions tended to be successfully squashed. While it was humiliating in some ways to have the agency taking a lot of money for doing nothing but landing me the spot, that did save me a lot of dreadful human resources interviews and frankly, I just wouldn't have found those positions on my own. I also used to see the most interesting trainwrecks: places where I'd take over the suddenly vacated position of an embezzler, a revenge case, a blazing incompetent. Whole little histories there. The work of course was more boring than not so regular changes of scenery were helpful as well.

lol Radio Shack was way ahead of the curve, they used to ask for your address years ago

That reminds me of this collection of anecdotes (I thought it mentioned the hassling-for-address thing but it doesn't seem to):
http://www.ihateworkinginretail.com/tag/i-hate-radioshack/

I particularly enjoyed VIII and XV, if you've got better things to do than read the whole collection of longwinded rants. But who would have better things to do than that?

omg XV is amazing, I have no idea what that is

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t53/baldie0522/doin-brum.gif

baldie doin-brum.gif

ia: egregiously bad service in restaurants. i'm sooooo chill and forgiving about minor food service slip-ups. i don't care if you smile. i don't care if you refill my water without me having to ask. if i don't say when i'm ordering that i'm allergic to XYZ food item (which would be a gross overstatement, since my food allergies are really trivial), it's a minor inconvenience but not the end of the world if the kitchen forgets to leave it off. i just want a baseline level of transactional ease if i'm gonna choose your place over other places. i had work to do last night and i ran out to get a quick takeout order so i could scarf down some food and meet my midnight deadline. i ended up waiting probably 40 minutes for a dish that at most would take ten minutes to cook from pre-prepped ingredients and assemble in a styrofoam box. and the restaurant was busy, but not slammed. it just made me very stressed out. which is my problem, not theirs. i don't handle stress well. 40 minutes is a long time to wait though.

no i in yr a

so to speak

the level of stress made my a feel i

_lol Radio Shack was way ahead of the curve, they used to ask for your address years ago_

That reminds me of this collection of anecdotes (I thought it mentioned the hassling-for-address thing but it doesn't seem to):
http://www.ihateworkinginretail.com/tag/i-hate-radioshack/

I particularly enjoyed VIII and XV, if you've got better things to do than read the whole collection of longwinded rants. But who would have better things to do than that?

Whoa thank you, aps! I read the first few of those when it was first posted, but missed the great ones you pointed out plus my favorite, the one w/ Stoned Craig going "I'm hungry, Paw." (Which I've said a lot to various people over decades for no reason I can discern, so maybe it's just part of the collective human drive to say it.)

Stoned Je55e

OK that Brum story looool
Original Brum theme was instrumental but TIL there is an extremely lengthy modern version

bill gates the spider

News sites showing handheld video but blurring out the edges? I feel like I see something like this every week or two. Sorry, this is some really traumatic video.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dying-among-strangers-metro-victim-found-fellow-riders-who-tried-to-save-her-life/2015/01/13/98f6c37e-9b7a-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html?hpid=z3

lately every time i watch some crappy viral video prank, i get IA imagining myself just out and about trying to run an errand and getting trapped in a viral video prank. like that dumb telekinesis coffee shop thing.*

*maybe the reactions are fake, idk.

It's very likely my last dying words will be "Turn your phone sideways if you insist on recording this."

Yeah, it's not because something is being blurred out, it's because people don't shoot in landscape and for some reason news organizations have chosen to present it like that. I think they should just reject all portrait videos.

Why can't phones just format videos in landscape regardless of the position of the phone?

camera sensor orientation? the actual sensor isn't square iirc, I may be wrong

those takeout containers with interlocking flaps - eating from them makes me ia bcz the flaps get in the way

i usually dump it out onto a plate of something but sometimes you can't & raaaaage

(although at this point even the covers to said dvds are spoilers. character A must survive season 8 because he's on the cover of season 9 dvds...)

The Sopranos were bad about this, the season posters.

i put disk 3 in the machine instead of disk 2 yesterday and i thought i'd lost my mind. took me 20 minutes of wondering how they got where they were (half-naked, locked in a container) to realise the mistake. it doesn't help that they sometimes play with time in the cold opens anyway.

Ok, so you're definitely not watching The Sopranos.

Got a notice from UPS that an eagerly anticipated package will be arriving some time between 2:00 and 6:00 pm. Hear a knock on my door at 10:30 am, but I ignore it because I'm on a work call and it's almost always someone trying to sell me roofing service or some bullshit, but of course I then find a note from UPS on the door, they couldn't deliver, so now I have to pick it up at one of their locations tomorrow.

I don't know why it bothers me so but it grates me to have someone keep trying to sell me after I've said "ok". my mother does this all the time. It only really bugs me when I'm involved in something and each extension of the conversation is a further distraction.

"Neanderthal, can we put together an order for groceries? for a few items?"
"Yes"
"Because there's a lot of items we're out of, we need to replace..."
"Ok."
"Because we need like beverages and some lunch items."
"Ok."
"It's not going to be a huge order, it's..."
"I said ok already!"

it's one thing if I'm a guy who perennially says 'no' to everything but I don't.

(it's one thing if the convo requires my input but if I'm asked a "yes" or "no" question I get annoyed at having to answer "yes" five times, it feels like being subjected to a computer 'are you sure you want to do this?' test)

I've got a co-worker, who I get along with, who talks all the time.

Hard at work on a project, he wants to know if a schedule can be adjusted. But instead of just asking "can the schedule be adjusted?", he was like Neanderthal's someone up there — except instead of saying "ok", I just sat there and made eye contact with him as he went on his spiel. He even almost faked me out, going "can the schedule be adjusted... ...because with all the other work coming in..."

Finally, he furrows his brow and says to me, "I'm not asking for much, just wondering what your thoughts on about it because—" and I finally interrupt. "I'll tell you my thoughts once you're finished talking."

He realizes what he's been doing and clamps it. So I tell him that the schedule can be adjusted.

All that to say. don't bother with the ok's. If they continue to "ask" after you've already said yes, let them keep going. Maybe they're trying to sell themselves.

"Things you hate that are not socially acceptable to hate"

is just a different way of saying 'irrationally angry'

Overlap with unpopular opinions (and variants)

xp yeah idgi there seem to be several of those threads active

ILX's aging demographic firmly in shouting at clouds territory

Pull to be the youthful voice saying "who cares?!" but that's just a variant of the same old trap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQhX8PbNUWI

It doesn’t make me angry exactly but it really bugs me when people stick out their tongue to take a bite of food.

catholic?

hmm I never thought about communion, I just meant in the normal course of eating food.

"You may leave your message now. Press the pound sign for more options."

So ok, when she said "now," she really meant "five seconds from now."

there are so many doctors offices i've worked w/ that have voicemail like that and silly me I assumed people were actually monitoring them and then I'd call back after not hearing something and get it again and hear 'mailbox full'.

I do eat saltines by putting them on my tongue and pulling in into my mouth.

Youtube prevew images with the host/creator making a stupid mugging-for-the-camera expression.

^^^ especially when they re-use the same 4 or 5 images.

I haven't used it myself, but there is a browser extension called DeArrow: "DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait."

The pantry where I volunteer a lot often has leftover food at the end of the shift, typically perfectly good private donations/rescues that nonetheless won't last until the next distribution and are offered to the volunteers to take home, since otherwise they'd have to be composted or thrown away to make space for new donations or rescues. I sometimes bring home a bag or two of bread, veggies, fruit, a pie, whatever - some things for the fridge, some things for the freezer, some things for the counter - but then there's an avalanche of annoying questions. "What are you going to do with that bread?" "Don't forget to use up the bananas." "Do you have plans for that salsa?" And my response is always more or less the same: I brought it home because it was free and was going to be disposed of, and if I think of something to do with it, good, and if not, that's fine, too, since throwing it out or composting it is what would have happened to it had I not brought it home in the first place!! So stop hassling me, maaaaan.

I'm part of a triglyceride drug study. I used to have the same nurse take my blood every time. She was great and it was always easy.

She left and now it's some clown who just seems unconfident in blood taking. He will search for veins like he's looking for acorns in an ocean, then finds one, rubs it with alcohol, then grabs the tourniquet, after which he loses the vein and starts the hunt over again.

I've bruised every time he's taken my blood, and the first time it was a bad one because he had to abort and reinsert because he fucked up. Last time I chugged mad water before hand and he still struggled.

Anyway I get a reminder call from the office and they add am extra message asking me to come hydrated this time to make the blood draw easier.

WHAT??!!!

Feel like fuckin coming in with an arrow tattooed on my forearm pointing to it

Haaaa. I'm literally at the clinic getting my weekly allergy shots right now. I get one in each arm. It's usually the same nurse and very painless. Today it was a different nurse, who I recognized because last time she was here a little while back, the shot in my left arm hurt like he'll and gave me a massive welt which lasted for days. When I get a big welt, I have to tell them the next time and they dial back my shot. Sure enough, she does left and I can feel her pressing it in and it really hurts. After she says "that left arm has really been giving people problems today, must be something in the serum." FFS

Hahaha. That's some real "wet streets cause rain" logic

Last time I got blood drawn the nurse was all but drooling over the size and prominence of my veins; it was like something out of Naked Lunch. Going in for one next week; hope whoever I get is competent.

I really can't stand someone walking into a room talking to me without making any effort to see if I'm even in a position to listen.

There was one instance recently when I was reading up on something extremely important and then got mad almost immediately that I wasn't listening, to which I snapped "i was in the middle of something important and you walked in and flooded me with an paragraphs worth of information before I could even look up to tell you 'please give me a minute'"

yes unfortunately been seeing someone who murmurs quietly in the other room and then expects me (hard of hearing from ROCK) to have comprehended everything that was said

notification that you have a (yet another) D3ll software update. click link, open app whatever = then it spins around “checking” for updates forever

YOU WERE THE ONE WHO TOLD ME THERE WAS ONE!

YOU DONT GOT IT READY TO GO?

so annoying

i mean nevermind that it reminded me 3 times TODAY that there was an update

fkn thing

yes unfortunately been seeing someone who murmurs quietly in the other room and then expects me (hard of hearing from ROCK) to have comprehended everything that was said

My wife does this. She's also one of those people who restarts a conversation that ended two or three days earlier, making no attempt to remind me of the context for her new remarks. I'm just supposed to remember and tag back in.

My dad texted me the other day, "Got a minute?"

I texted back, "Sure. What's up?"

No response.

Ten minutes later, he rings the doorbell. He's been sitting in my driveway, where's he's been waiting for me to come out for a minute.

haha!

most annoying in this day and age: websites that ask you to enter your email address or postcode and clearly have some constant validation going on because you type ~the first letter~ and red text pops up THAT DOESN'T LOOK RIGHT. PLEASE ENTER A VALID POSTCODE/EMAIL ADDRESS

my energy company does this when you log in and it makes me so mad

I was buying tickets to my son's play yesterday and it said I needed to switch to my bank app to confirm, so I did that, then after approving I switched tasks back to the browser, which had refreshed and lost the transaction. this happens all the fucking time, the worst is the hospital app, which asks me to confirm via an email, and of course it refreshes and I'm back to stage one. I have tried fixing phone settings to prioritise the browser app and stop it refreshing but it doesn't seem to care.

My wife does this. She's also one of those people who restarts a conversation that ended two or three days earlier, making no attempt to remind me of the context for her new remarks. I'm just supposed to remember and tag back in.

― wipes chooser (unperson), Wednesday, March 11, 2026 8:37 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

My dad and I talk on the phone, on average, once every two months or so. I have a theory that he believes that when we hang up, I stand there like a statue for roughly eight weeks until we talk again, at which point he acts like he is a Netflix show and I am the fan who has been waiting with baited breath between seasons to find out which windshield wipers he thinks I should buy

there's a post-2005 horror film thread and a pre-2006 horror film thread. they overlap. 2005 films can go on either.

also, two active irrationally angry threads.

An Post the Irish postal service having a growing Service charge on top of whatever fee for whatever e.g. unpaid VAT etc.
Fee is normally a couple of € but now standing charge is 6.95. It used to be a couple of € less but already a pain.
& it seems to pop up randomly when you're expecting it to be covered since firm should be doing business outside UK already. Yeah tends to be dealing with UK firms post Brexit.

Has turned up apparently completely randomly calculated, nothing to do with value quoted on the package.
& it's an absolute pain.

Post Office first against the wall come the revolution. Or at least customs dept.

Maybe not angry, but I'm irrationally annoyed by car indicator lights that light up left-to-right or right-to-left instead of just having the whole light come on.

I recently saw a car with an led screen at the bottom of their windshield which displayed eyes looking around, like Pixar’s Cars. Fucking distracting and stupid.

it annoys me when The Repair Shop shows little scenes of people working on things that aren't featured in this week's episode.

Similar thing: I pretty much don't like any of these stupid Discogs listicles, but in this instance the cover art on the top left (blue and white, says "PATTERNS REPEAT") caught my eye and I was curious who the artist was and what the music sounded like. So I click the article and it's not mentioned at all! Soooo stupid

https://i.postimg.cc/DyRzz6ZM/di.png

It's Laura Marling

These search field boxes that endlessly rotate through suggestions like "Try great deals under 20K," "Try SUVs with car play," Try 3 bedrooms with wooden floor," "Try fenced yard with a chef's kitchen," etc.

All the while, I'm just browsing and trying to narrow shit down on my own, but it's difficult to do with this endless animation repeating itself. You can't even scroll down since it follows you.

(I do just type an X in the field to shut it up, but I shouldn't have to do that.)

ASMR restaurant videos where cooks use metal utensils on nonstick cookware, scraping the shit out of the pans and presumably putting bits of nonstick coatings into the food.

Professional interactions with other human beings is kind of a textbook example of something that makes me irrationally angry. My Internet is out for the second time in a ten days. This materially affects me. I could get upset about it. Getting upset is not effective. I have some measure of control over this situation. There is a process to follow when something like this happens. I find the technical support number. I call the technical support number. There is a brief automated message, no more than 15 seconds or so, thanking me for calling (provider). I press "2" to specify that I am seeking technical support, rather than sales. I press "1" to confirm that I am calling about the account linked to (phone number). It is good design that the support system can tell what phone number I am calling from. I do not press "Nueve" por Espanol. A machine voice says "At the tone, state your problem. For example, 'Fix my Internet'." I say "Fix my Internet" at the tone. The machine understands me. Five years ago the machine did not understand me, because I have a lisp. Technology has advanced in ways that benefit me.

The service for my current provider is much better than the service for my former Internet provider, Comcast. The call is immediately transferred to a professional woman fluent in English. She has a strong Indian accent, but her accent causes me no difficulty in understanding her. I can hear a number of voices speaking in the background which are not filtered out by the phone technology. This causes me some trouble understanding her. I am using speaker phone on a telephone which is probably eight years or so old. She does not ask me to clarify anything I am saying despite this.

I try to be pleasant on the phone. However, since this is the second time in ten days I have had this problem, my displeasure is audible in my voice. I am unhappy about this, and I am doing my best. It can't be helped. The tech support operator is a professional. I am sure that she has heard worse. I know that a great deal of tech support consists of managing the emotions of upset customers, particularly the emotions of fragile white people. I work very hard to manage my own emotions.

The tech support operator asks me to verify my phone number, my physical address, and my email address. I say all of these things out loud. I do not spell out my email address using the NATO phonetic alphabet, because I know this is to verify my identity, and that they already have the information they're asking me for on file.

I tell the tech support operator, whose name I do not understand, that I do not have Internet service and that the light on my modem is blinking blue. I tell her that this has been the case since yesterday afternoon. I tell her that the modem periodically makes a "clicking" sound. I tell her that the lights next to my network cables are orange, not green like they usually are. I have talked to tech support often enough to know that this is the basic information they need to know. I answer tech support questions as if I am being put on the stand. I answer the question she asks. I do not provide additional information. I wait for her to ask something else.

She asks me to help her diagnose the problem. This is part of the emotional management good tech support operators are trained to do. I say I will be happy to help her. She asks me to unplug the modem, wait ten seconds, and plug it back in again. This is the single most effective procedure, by far, one can perform when attempting to fix errors in electronic machines. I have performed this procedure several times before calling technical support. I would prefer not to call technical support if I can avoid it. I am happy to perform the procedure again. It is a simple, routine act that does not take very long to perform. I unplug the modem, count to ten, using the (presumably American?) "one-Mississippi" method, before plugging the modem back in. "I have waited ten seconds and plugged the modem back in," I say to the support operator. "The light on the modem is now solid red." She asks me to let her know when the light changes color. I wait two minutes or so and it changes color. "It is now solid blue," I say. For a second I am hopeful. Perhaps this time it worked. "No, no," I say after a second. "It's flashing blue."

She asks me to use a paperclip to push the reset button on the back of the modem. I do not use paperclips for anything else. When I changed my phone plan, it came with something that is made of the same material as a paperclip, but is not a paperclip. It is purpose-built for pressing reset buttons on machines that require a paperclip. I keep it by my modem. I do not use paperclips or staples in the home. "I have used a paperclip to push the reset button on the back of the modem," I say. "The light on the modem is now solid red."

The tech support operator tells me that if this procedure does not work, the next step will be to schedule a technician to come to my house. I tell her this is acceptable. I know that this is the standard process because I went through it last Wednesday, the last time my Internet went out. The morning after I scheduled a technician call, the Internet started working again, and I therefore cancelled the appointment through text message. I received an automated response telling me that they were unable to cancel my appointment. The message was misleading. They were, in fact, able to cancel my appointment.

The light on the modem goes back to flashing blue. I inform the support operator of this. She tells me again that the next step is to schedule a technician to come to my house. I say "Yes, I would like to do this." I would like to use precise, accurate verbiage on these calls. The support operator does not necessarily ask direct questions, I notice. This is probably another technique to manage the emotions of upset customers. I say "Yes" a lot, on the assumption that saying "yes" is more likely to advance the process.

"Yes, I would like you to send a technician out. Yes, I will wait for you to find the next available appointment. Yes, I am still at (address). Yes, my phone number is still (phone)." I am not annoyed at being asked to verify information I have already verified with her. She is asking these questions for a reason. It reduces the rate of errors in communication. Errors in communication are one of the chief causes of customer dissatisfaction.

"Yes, Tuesday, (date) between (time) and (time) will work for me." Of course I am not happy that my Internet will be out for another two days. It is an inconvenience that I am able to work around. I have Internet through my phone. Having an Internet outage will disrupt my routine of mindlessly scrolling on the Internet. I don't think this is entirely to my detriment. There are all kinds of productive, useful things I avoid doing by mindlessly scrolling on the Internet. I don't like being reminded of all of these productive, useful things. Doing them is exhausting. Often doing them is not effective, for reasons that are outside of my control. I wouldn't say that I don't live in reality, precisely, but I do often find it effective to hold reality at arm's length.

"Yes, I would like to receive text reminders. Yes, I understand that there may be a fee. Yes, I understand that if my service starts working, I can cancel my appointment via your app or via text message. Is there anything else you require from me? No, there is nothing else I require from you. Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate your service. I am going to hang up the phone now."

This entire process was routine and unproblematic. The phone call lasted precisely 14 minutes and 1 second, a far shorter length of time than it took me to document the interaction. I would consider it to be a completely successful professional interaction.

Is there an equivalent of "ennui" for anger? That's what inspired me to write all of this up. It's not just that I feel irrationally angry. It's that this particular irrational anger is the most anodyne, superficial sort of anger I can possible imagine. It's not anger, not boredom, but some emotion I can't name, an emotion that combines both those emotions. A pallid anger.

I am going to take a shower now.

FTR, I had this problem a few months ago. When the modem light is blinking blue like that it could mean that the problem is not with your modem, it's somewhere higher up the ladder.

I recommend signing up for AT&T Air. It's very cheap - I pay $47 a month - and very fast. Also, it has some weird VPN-ish qualities; my browser thinks I'm in Phoenix, AZ, or sometimes in Oregon or Washington State. I have had no problems with outages (unless I lose power entirely, which happens sometimes) since dumping CenturyLink in favor of AT&T.

I honestly wish most interactions with tech support went as smoothly as what is described above. The last time I had an issue with my cell phone provider it took me about half an hour to get past the chatbot in order to schedule a call (which included looking up reddit threads to check what specifically I needed to type in order to get to the "schedule a call" function of the chatbot), once I talked to an actual person it all went well, but they really make it difficult to get there.