Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

if ANYONE would simply admit that they have unacknowledged/unexamined disdain for service workers (evidenced throughout this gargantuan thread) we could stop having this conversation.

"Confess! Confess!"

wow

I did not call you insane. I said that was an insane claim to make which it is. You keep saying that I clearly hate service workers which just is not true.

I cannot stand the phrase "cooperative learning" so I guess I have contempt for teaching?

LL, just as I came off like an asshole yesterday, you are coming off like an asshole today. You're not alone, but it's particularly unusual for you — I think you're one of ILX's most empathetic posters most of the time. This discussion is getting the better of you, for some reason, and I don't think you can see it.

hate to inform on the language cop thread, but did you all miss these other posts or something?

"What can I get started for you today?" is my personal "welcome in" of this past decade

***

"My name is Earl and I'll be taking care of you tonight."

Oh, thank god, Earl, I can't tell you how long I've waited for someone to take care of me.

***

I've already noted my dislike of "Are you still working on that?" "I'll be taking care of you" is just another one of those overused and awkward phrases to me.

***

"What can I get started for you" doesn't aggravate me, and I assume it's used to remind jerks there's a made-to-order process involved, but it does kinda feel like it's trying to disclaim responsibility for the meal? Like "look, I will initiate the process of your food being prepared, but honestly, a lot of this is out of my hands"

***

while we're picking on unfortunate wait staff, "that's going to be your menu" annoys me no end. It *is* my menu.

I am curious if there’s anyone here who hasn’t been a service worker at some point in their lives?

I don’t want to assume that everyone has had to be “the help” and have their language controlled/determined

I cannot stand the phrase "cooperative learning" so I guess I have contempt for teaching?

I am curious if there’s anyone here who hasn’t been a service worker at some point in their lives?

I never waited tables per se, but my first job at 15 was at Baskin-Robbins (ice cream store); I was also a convenience store cashier, worked in a bakery, and was a cashier at one of the food courts in Newark Airport, and at Barnes & Noble (they eventually moved me to the stockroom because I was tired of dealing with the public by then).

Nobody asked me, but I think it is possible to find a phrase weird or off-putting while still a) being 100% OK with other people using it, and b) understanding and appreciating how language evolves. Nineteen years ago on this very thread, I posted that "I kind of despise brain fart." And I still do! But that's my problem; I'm not going to judge you if you say it. The modern use of "eat"/"ate" has a similar slightly grating quality to me, but I'm simultaneously delighted by its existence.

It wouldn't have occurred to me find "welcome in" unusual (maybe because it's something I've heard often enough at restaurants without really registering it), and so it doesn't bother me. But the discussion on this thread, and the Eater article that was posted, made me realize that it is a little odd, in fact, and I can see how someone might bristle at it. I find that interesting! I don't doubt that some people are contemptuous of people who say phrases they dislike, but I don't think that disliking a phrase is intrinsically tied to contempt for its speaker.

i was at a restaurant today (in England) and the waitress and my friend the customer spent about 10 minutes in total apologising to each other

xp I don't think reasonable takes like that are allowed on this thread any more, sorry

I've never heard welcome in. Perhaps I have simply not been worthy of welcoming in.

i was at a restaurant today (in England) and the waitress and my friend the customer spent about 10 minutes in total apologising to each other

― kinder,

out of Becket.

ok i went for a walk (which i had planned to do anyway, not because of anything here) and am relieved that no one has chimed in to agree that i am being an asshole. i'm going to take the liberty of writing a little more than i usually do.

one of the reasons i am good at my jobs (teacher and server) and actually rather enjoy both is because i genuinely like interacting with people, and it's easy for me. i like it AND i am good at it. i can be my best self, and enjoy it. especially on a limited basis, with a time constraint after which i can say goodbye. i get to interact with people, be genuine, and overall spread goodwill. that is pretty cheesy, but that's me.

i am also longtime ilxor and, as noted in one of my posts from two years ago that i am too tired to look up again, an admitted glutton for punishment. i wandered into this thread years ago to see what people find annoying. and what did i find? i am the person they find annoying. it's me. the friendly actually hoping you have a great night person serving your dinner. seeing that made me feel bad, i will admit that. it was like seeing a conversation in which students are talking about how annoying i am. it made me feel bad. personally, i don't think that is weird. i am both friendly and sensitive.

so i tried to stand up for myself, over and over. and over and over people would tell me that i am not seeing what i am seeing, an annoyance with people who are trying to provide good service. people who actually want you to have a great night. people like me.

whether or not anyone here is able to separate the speaker from their language? i will adjust my appraisal to idk but that is why i am reacting so strongly. it hurt my feelings to see that people found me annoying. the end. :)

tl;dr -- i should have more self-control and not look. i have gotten a lot better in this regard but not enough apparently.

_Love to be lectured by people who would collapse if they had to do the work that people like LL and I do on busy nights at the bar/restaurant._


You do remember I spent years cleaning up after you and your friends at shows and poetry readings, yeah?

LL, I get what yr saying and feel like part of what’s happening here is that you and I are saying “this really feels bad for these reasons” and people are like “no it doesn’t because that isn’t what i am doing”

but that is what we perceive them to be doing, which should be enough of a reason to…not do it! but alas.

ENBB otm. Finding a particular turn of phrase annoying, overused, awkward, etc. does not imply disdain or hostility to the speaker. I find some of the language used by members of my own profession at least as annoying as anything used by someone in food service.

you and I are saying “this really feels bad for these reasons” and people are like “no it doesn’t because that isn’t what i am doing”

What I read was "this feels bad because you are expressing hostility toward people in my line of work" which, speaking for myself, was certainly not my intent.

So nobody can say that a phrase used by customer service people annoys them in a thread about annoying phases?

I have seen many examples in here of things I have used/said both in work communication and othwrwise. I am sure other people have as well. I have never assumed that meant the poster would hate me if I used that phrase with them.

Why shouldn't it be enough when people are telling you that definitely isn't why they meant/felt? I think there is a whole lot of projecting going on here.

LL, I get what yr saying and feel like part of what’s happening here is that you and I are saying “this really feels bad for these reasons” and people are like “no it doesn’t because that isn’t what i am doing”

but that is what we perceive them to be doing, which should be enough of a reason to…not do it! but alas.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

you are each demanding that what you insist is happening is in fact happening

it hasnt been happening and i don't see why anyone should have to agree it is, regardless of that insistence

forcing any topic as uncontroversial as this into "this makes me feel x y and z" in order to lecture ppl is not a good behaviour and not rushing to feed it is not an attack- nor is it telling anyone "you are not feeling x y or z"

at worst its a fairly ambivalent "feel x, y or z so that's not really what was said but whatever"

do you think people have to do more than that whether they agree with you or not? that's pretty controlling behaviour imo and i think it's actually healthier to call it out.

your own entry was provocative and dramatic, but it was no more a reflection of the actual discussion as any other spin on things from anyone else. the phrasing around this discussion has been several different things at once and nobody gets to insist its any one thing, but even if they had that right - does anyone claim that right?- the angle being pushed here is an extremely forced one as far a i can see it.

and i started out noting that having an issue with the phrase is weird, fwiw.

ppl had already said theyd worked or continue to work service jobs prior to your line of "the work we do would kill u normies", a level of input that is far below what you are well capable of and its not in harshness that i say that!

i think neanderthal very clearly set out the acres of difference between finding many elements of - lets call it US service speak- grating or irritating or whatever and stating "i hate service staff" and ppl cannot make that any clearer without it becoming a case of everyone posting only in a fashion and manner to please a very small and limited opinion set and sensitivity here. its gone a long way into persecution complex, again i dont see whats healthy about boosting that if one doesnt in any way agree with it

to the nub of it, its simply not reasonable behaviour and - again- nobody should be fingerwagged into thinking it is, and tbh conversely nobody on the other side should be encouraged into thinking it is.

otm.

i think LL's reaction is totally normal and human. it can't feel good to imagine people groaning behind your back at the phrases you use to facilitate countless interactions per shift. but some posters' annoyance at certain phrases doesn't nec mean that they are exposing their unconcious resentment toward actual people. even if we zoom out and see patterns of language bias that reflect classism or various other isms it doesn't mean each individual case is a matter of moral shortcoming

I've only read some of this (catch-up on all the fun you guys been having later) but isn't stuff like this:

"My name is Earl and I'll be taking care of you tonight."

Phrases that the worker has been coached to say, things they must say otherwise they won't work there?

Whereas a way of communicating in an email, or everyday interaction is a thing that people unthinkingly pick up and start using. They don't have to do that.

So I can understand the annoyance. Being told what to say, and then having someone find that thing they probably might not say as annoying - just adds up to humiliation.

I honestly have no idea whether anyone is "required" to say that. If so, then let's chalk it up as one more example of corporate-speak. If it's freestyling on the part of the speaker, then I'll just say I don't like it. It sounds too, I don't know, intimate and overbearing.

All of that said, this is, like most of the gripes mentioned in this thread, a very minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things.

I mean, I can't imagine running a restaurant and obliging my staff to say something in particular to the staff, but then again, I don't run a restaurant.

*to the customers

xxxpost Oh, there is most definitely "house style" in many office jobs. how many times have examples itt come from things overheard when calling a call center?

For call center employees (which is my industry), the agent greetings, the way they word things, the way they structure calls - this is all meticulously plotted out, usually by people who have never done the job in their lives. In other office jobs, things like work signatures, specific verbiage to use when referring to things in meetings, it might not be scripted, but these are things that are also crafted by rich assholes from above. I had one client project where I basically dreaded leading meetings because I had to tick so many boxes of how the big boss wanted it done, right down to specific words I was not allowed to say, or certain ways I had to refer to things.

that's part of my overarching point, that - for many of us, we are well aware that these sayings are things that come from six figure dorks who have no clue how how to wait tables, bartender, or what customers want, and if I were to be annoyed by anything a server/bartender said on that level, I've usually assumed it's a 'house style' thing and I'm poking fun at the out of touch dorks who pat themselves on the back for these stupid innovations. (generally speaking, though, things I hear in restaurants/bars don't bother me).

I realize not everybody is like that, and some, consciously or subconsciously, do come at it from a place of condescension. and I know that servers often get blamed for things they had nothing to do with - the same thing happens in my industry as well. I think starting from a starting by asking "why do you all hate service workers?" rather than merely asking "hey uh, what's wrong with these sayings? they're innocuous and btw, things I have to say daily" is what kind of enflamed things. I'm sure that'll be called 'tone policing', but I just don't see why the least charitable interpretation is often the one gravitated to the fastest here.

phrases I say by choice and things that I've said on account of my job have appeared itt often, even in the last two weeks - sometimes I've even been defensive about it and asked 'hey what's wrong w/ that?'. I was just taken aback by the escalation to "you hate service workers" and also taking my awful attempt at a restaurant version of A Modest Proposal at face value.

I don't dislike anybody itt and I don't feel good that anybody gets mistreated at their job so...I'll leave it at that.

once again

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-prole-info-abolish-restaurants

Hello there!

Where? I’m here! Hello here!

“Boho-alr”

deems, our feelings around this issue are happening, and so to have many posters say “but that isn’t what’s happening” can feel like those many posters are saying that our feelings don’t matter. that’s fine, but it still makes me (at least) feel not great.

i also do admit that some of my recent posting in this thread is not wonderful, but seeing as how i have been staring down a tunnel of insolvency for years and a lot of things are coming to a head right now might help to explain some of the resentment and bile in my posts. apologies.

“Separating the speaker from the words they speak in a peeve thread about language use is not possible. it's baked in. suggesting otherwise seems disingenuous at best. more likely no one wants to be seen as a hater of powerless people.”

Yeah this is how I feel. It’s not complaining about random words in the air flying up to you unspoken and unwritten, like unmanned words in space… you’re complaining about the people saying them.

it seems self evident to me but w/e

TS: posters vs posers

Except we have said repeatedly that we are not and it seems self evident to me that what you're claiming is absurd but w/e.

Language how does it work

what even is language.. a way to communicate?

Language is a virus

is having a report in school heavily marked down for poor writing an expression of disdain for the student?

this thread is for words, usages, and phrases people hate. if that's inherently shitting on the people who use these words, then we might as well lock thread as then the thread is just for openly shitting on people.

(I don't think it is, even though I often roll my eyes at this thread, but at this point I think the thread has very little utility and I don't think this discussion is ever going to resolve).

My default after in many cases almost twenty years of interacting with y'all here is to trust a poster's sincerity and not to think the poster is classist, racist, or operating on bad faith.

I think the binary being set up there doesn't quite work, though I agree boiling it down to "I don't like these words in this order" is a little absurd. A word or series of words cannot be objectively annoying; the context, including but not exclusively who's speaking, is clearly vital even if it's not necessarily strictly personal.

imo there's something key missing from this discussion: emotional labour. Including: the emotional labour that service workers must do, the culturally reinforced language used to do that labour, the language workers are explicitly trained to use for emotional labour by an employer, resentment over the perceived insincerity or superfluity of emotional labour on the consumers' part, + resentment over the social expectation that one participate in (possibly) rote or false rituals of hospitality, and the draining and psychologically harmful effects of doing emotional labour.

I use a lot of these “annoying” words at my job, they are honestly helpful in describing things. Like “ask”. So yeah I guess I feel like I’m being told not to use these words because I’m being a dork or something?

The words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of people in this thread tend to be ones that imply some unpleasant pretentiousness on the part of the speaker, as in, they should have just used a plain old word rather than spice things up. Pretentious.

I have used it too because it's the common office language now and it's just what people do. It doesn't make you a dork at all and I don't think anyone is saying not to use them. I hate all the corporate phrases but I'm sure I've used most of them at one point or another. I've just always read those kinds of posts as light heartedly making fun of corporate jargon.

i too have used the very jargon i complain about

i never have

amd i never hope to going forward

I think a bit of the tension is related to performativity and roles. Like, I think the criticism, if it goes further than the words, the furthest it hits is the role of servant, as opposed to the actual people performing the role.

As someone who performs the servant role, I can possibly feel like the criticism also hits me, like if I perhaps played my role better, I wouldn’t be treated with revulsion like a candidate for 3rd worst actor?

Idk I am kinda high on cold medicine rn?

I have an ask: let's be more awesomesauce.

Cool beans!