Things That Piss Me Off

I suppose I could call this rant post “Pet Peeves” but I prefer the title I went with, because I want to emphasize that these are things that really piss me off! 

#1.  Waitresses—or floor people—taking my not quite empty glass of soda when they don’t have the replacement.

This mostly refers to when I’m playing poker in Vegas.  My throat tends to get dry really fast, especially in that extremely dry Vegas climate.  I need to keep it lubricated at all times.  Cocktail service in most Vegas poker rooms isn’t the fastest.  So I actually don’t mind when they bring me the diet coke in a glassful of ice.  I can use that ice when the soda is gone to keep my throat from getting dry.  I like sucking on the ice.

So when the waitress comes back to take my order and tries to take my glass that only consists of melting ice, I stop her.  I know it will be a good 20 minutes before she comes back with my drink, and if I’m lucky, that ice will last until she gets back.

Every now and then, when there’s just ice in my glass, I’ll take a bathroom break and come back to find that the waitress or a floor person has done me the “favor” of clearing away my glass. And that really, really pisses me.  Now I have to wait 20 minutes for the waitress to come back just to take my order, and another 20 minutes for the waitress to deliver it, and my throat will be bone dry.

Leave my freaking glass alone.  If there’s even one drop of liquid or a tiny piece of ice left, I want it, dammit.  And do you really think an empty glass in a cup holder is bothering anyone?  Even if the glass was completely empty, it wouldn't be doing any harm.  So why take it unless the person at that seat asks you to take it.  You’re doing a pretty crappy job of reading my mind if you take my glass away.

I’m gonna tell a story that I’ve been sitting on for a long time.  I just have to be careful—since I work in the poker biz I can’t go around blasting poker rooms by name even when they deserve it. 

But let’s just say I was playing in a tournament some time back in a room that had a special series running, and I was playing in one of the tournaments in that series.  There was a big turnout.  In players, that is.  In cocktail waitresses—not so much.

Throughout the first couple of hours, there seemed to be a dispute between the two waitresses assigned to this tournament as to which one of them was handling the center row, where I was seated.  They each had one of the outer rows, no problem.  And they came around fairly frequently.  But after one of them took our orders once, she never came back.  The other one ignored us as well.

As they were walking around, I’d yell, “Cocktails, Cocktails!” and they would look at me and walk away. They wouldn’t even have the courtesy to say to me, “Sorry, that’s not my table, I’ll tell the girl who is handling it.”  The dealers would call for cocktails and be ignored.  The floor people would call (after I complained to them) and be ignored.  One floor person even called over to the bar (or wherever) to try to get a waitress to come.  That didn’t work.

Fortunately, the one drink I’d been served was almost all ice.  So I was really milking it, hoping that ice would last until I finally got a drink.  Every time a floor person walked by, I’d ask about cocktails.  And they’d say they’d call, or they’d tell me a waitress would be right back.  Bullshit.

One of the floor people was someone I recognized from having played with him before.  In fact, it’s entirely possible he’s been mentioned in a blog post or two.  He was rather dismissive of my concerns.  Once, he told me the waitress would be right back.  Twenty minutes later, I reminded him and he said, “I think she went on break.”  Huh?  So I said, “You know, I’m dying of thirst here. My throat is really dry.”

And what did he say?  He pointed to one of my tournament chips and said, “If you’re throat’s dry, I suggest you suck on one of those and that should keep your throat wet.”  That’s probably not an exact quote, but it’s close enough and he definitely suggested I should suck on a poker chip.

To say I was displeased is an extreme understatement.  And I didn’t know what to do about it.  You see, before the tournament, I had said hello and introduced myself to the tournament director.  I had worked with him, via email, to get this event listed on AVP.  And at one point during the tournament, I had complained to him about the cocktail service.  To be clear, I wasn’t trying to throw my weight around, I just wanted him to be aware of how bad the service was.  And needless to say, it wasn’t just me that was looking for a drink.  Our whole row of tables had been ignored.  If I could use whatever influence I had to get us all served, that would be a good thing.

Of course, the poker room has no ability whatsoever to affect the cocktail service.  That’s true at any poker room.  The waitresses are union and basically are untouchable.

Anyway, the tournament director probably would have some control over his poker room people.  And honestly, that nasty floor person needed to be spoken to.  But I didn’t now want to use any extra influence I might have had to get the guy in trouble.  Even though he deserved it.  So I said nothing.  I wonder if I might have reported him if I was totally incognito and not “representing” AVP?  I’m not sure.

Anyway, there was still a tiny bit of ice left when we went on break.  And when I returned, I was really pissed to see that my glass I had been cleared away!  I exclaimed—to no one in particular—as soon as I saw it, “They took my glass away!”  It turned out that the floor person—a different one than the guy who had been so rude—had cleared it himself and was right there to hear me bitch.  “Sorry, sir, but it was empty.”

I responded, “There was a little bit of ice in it, and since the waitress hasn’t been to this table for over an hour, I was counting on that to keep my throat from getting too dry.  The cocktail service in here is atrocious.  I wanted that last bit of ice, since I can’t seem to get a drink.”

The guy couldn’t have been nicer, or more apologetic.  He went off and somehow managed to get me a glass of ice.  It would have been nice if there had been some liquid in it but this was good enough.  I wonder if it would have a violation of some union rule for him to have put water in it?

Anyway, the problem was solved when they broke our table and I was sent to a table in one of the rows where the waitress was actually taking orders.

When I busted, I said goodbye to the tournament director and he apologized for the poor service.  He explained that the regular staff is pretty good, but for the series, they have to bring in extra people (just like they have to bring in extra dealers) and some of those extra waitresses aren’t very good.

But the point is….don’t take my ice!  Unless you have my replacement drink with you.

#2.  Websites that auto-play audio or audio and video as soon as you get there.  No option to press play.  As soon as the page is half-loaded, there’s some audio blasting out of your computer.

Everyone who has a website like this should be banned from the internet and sent to jail.  For life.

First of all, I might be listening to something else coming out of my computer speakers, and this stupid audio might be drowning it out. Or I could be on the phone, or I could be in an office where the audio might bother my co-workers (or get me in trouble).   If you have something worth hearing on your entry page, tell me what it is and let me decide to play it, asshole.  It is downright rude to just play something as soon as I get to your site.  There is no excuse for it.  None.

Also, when I travel I sometimes don’t have the fastest internet connections.  In fact, in Vegas, I almost always have a slow connection (cuz I’m too cheap to pay for the upgrade).  So it really slows my whole system down while it’s trying to play that damn video.

And this note to radio stations:  When I try to listen to your station on the PC, please don’t run a video before starting the live stream. The video will take forever to play with a slow internet connection, delaying me from listening to your station.  I get that you want to play a commercial before you start the stream.  I’m fine with that, you’re entitled to do that, since I’m not paying for your programming.  But you’re a radio station, damn it.  Play your commercial as pure audio so it will take 30 seconds and not five minutes.

#3.  Intentionally bad singing in commercials.  Have you heard those “Flo” commercials for Progressive Insurance?  The ones where she sings?  It’s enough to make you vomit.

I know she is singing badly on purpose.  It’s supposed to be funny.  It’s not.  It’s funny for maybe one-tenth of one second and then it’s just 1,000 times worse than nails on a chalkboard.

I actually like the Progressive TV commercials.  There kind of cute and Flo has an odd appeal.  Until she sings.  If I met her in the street, I’d want to punch her in the throat to keep her from ever singing again.

Needless to say, if they could save me 99% percent on my insurance, I wouldn’t do business with those assholes.

#4. People with hyphenated last names.  Hey folks, please don’t burden the rest of us with your family issues.  A first name and a last name are more than enough for us to have to deal with.  Don’t make us have to say “Mr. Worthington-Jamison.”  Or Ms. “Billingsly-Shicklegruber.”

Pick one!

Look, I understand it’s not your fault your parents did that to you.  They gave you a horrible burden to carry, but please, please, please, don’t pass this on to us.  Even if it’s two simple names like “Smith-Jones” it’s still needlessly annoying.

So pick one.  Now, if it happens that your father was useless bum who left your mom when you were 2 and never visited you, why are you honoring him by using his name?  Drop his name and just go with Mom’s.

OTOH, if you have two loving parents, you need to sit down with them and tell your mom that you’re sorry she and dad were hippies but you can’t let that ruin your life.  And tell you mom that, as much as you love her, you’re going with Dad’s name from now on.  Tell her you’re trying to make it easier for all your acquaintances to live in peace and harmony, and hopefully she’ll understand.  Give her something extra special next Mother’s Day.

#5. The Designated Hitter.  This is, without question, the worst idea in the history of mankind.  Yes, mankind.

The Designated Hitter is what soured me on baseball.  I hate, loathe, despise it.  It is a crime against all that is right in the world.  There is no doubt in my mind that whoever thought of the idea, and everyone who voted to implement it, is either now, or eventually will be, burning in hell for all eternity.  And deservedly so.

If you happen to disagree, please don’t tell me or try to argue with me.  You’d have a much better chance of convincing me that 2 plus 2 is 1,345 than convincing me that the DH is not the worst idea in the history of the universe.  And if I find out you like the DH, I will just mentally deduct 50 points from my personal estimation of your I.Q.

No, if you do like the DH, finish reading this post and then go grab your phone and immediately call the nearest mental health facility and have them send an ambulance for you.  You need to be put somewhere where you cannot harm innocent people.

Another thing that soured be on baseball was all the damn specialization.  You have a closer, you have a set-up man.  You have a guy who only comes in with two outs in 7^th.  There’s a different guy if there’s one out in the 7^th.  You can’t have the closer pitch to anyone in the 8^th.  He can’t face more than four batters. Etc.

And what’s with the bullshit with pitch counts?  These days if a guy is pitching a No-Hitter, the manager might still pull him in the eighth.  And for sure they’d pull him if he’s only pitching a shutout.  A guy has given up only three basehits and no one has reached second?  Sorry, we have to put our setup man in the 8^th and our closer in the 9^th.  What kind of bullshit is that?  In my opinion, if a manager pulls a pitcher throwing a shutout and the pitcher isn’t bleeding and missing a limb, the manager should be permanently banned from baseball.

What idiot of a manager would pull this pitcher prematurely?

And then, there’s pitching on four-days rest.  When I fell in love with baseball, pitchers routinely pitched on three-days rest, and in a pinch, two-days rest was ok.  Hell, Sandy Koufax and Mickey Lolich won World Series on two-days rest in the ‘60’s.  It was before my time but in the old, old days, pitchers would sometimes pitch both games of a double-header.

#6. Speaking of baseball, grown adults wearing baseball caps backwards (see here).

#7. "Zero Tolerance" Policies.  I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies.  It's just an excuse for people who don't want to think.  If people are incapable of thinking and making a proper decision, they shouldn't have the job they're doing.

#8. The Limp/Re-Raise (see here).

#9. The Button Straddle (see here).

#10. Funbags (see here).

Well, that’s all for now.  I reserve the right to do a follow up as more things that piss me off occur to me.