Kill 'Em With Kindness

Today I'm going to have a little bitchfest about niceness.  Or not-niceness.  Whatever it is, I'm going to complain about people being jerks.  Specifically, over the last 24 hours.

Right away, I'm sure you could conjure up a situation where some stranger was a big fat jerk face to you recently.  Something that makes you squint with pissedoffness when you think about it.  I have  bunch of them that regularly occur and really light a fire under my ass.

1- People who walk into an establishment before you and let the door slam shut on you.

2- People who walk in behind you and don't say thank you (or smile or even look at you) when you hold the door open for them.  

3- People who are polite enough to hold a door, but can't figure out that "you're welcome" is the correct response to "thank you."

4- People who look at you like you're an idiot when you smile at them as you walk past each other in public.

5- People who cut in front of you in line at a store because clearly they never figured out how a line works.  Get in the back, Jack!

Those are five of my favorites.  I would like to give honorable mention to grammatical issues like those who think an apostrophe means you pluralized a word.  Louise's farts vs. Louises farts..... the first one is about farts that belong to Louise.  The second one pertains to flatulence created by a group of people called Louise.  And "car's" means that something belongs to a car.  "Cars" means more than one car.  It's really the worst!  It's apostrophe abuse.

REALLY???  WHY?  WHAT MAKES THIS PERSON THINK ANY PUNCTUATION BELONGS IN "LASTS"???  THIS WAS TOO PAINFUL NOT TO SHARE.  IT'S A GRAMMATICAL TRAIN WRECK!

Reading back, I've come to realize that I have a lot of issues involving door etiquette, don't I?

Anyway, I learned something new about "being too nice".  There is no such thing as being too nice when you're in business.  I've been criticized for "being too nice" to my clients when I don't charge for certain things that most other people charge for.  Most of the time it's because of some kind of human error.... and God knows I've got my own list of human errors that I've made!  So, sometimes I don't charge people for things like forgetting to cancel every once in a (long) while, or if they urgently need my help at the last minute because they (infrequently) forgot to call me.  Random stuff happens.   (But I DO have limits.)

As a benefit, it is that those little acts of understanding people for being human and making mistakes that usually improves and strengthens the bond with me and my clients.  BEING NICE HELPS.

Let me give you an example.

Exhibit A:  (I really don't need the A...there was only one situation today, but it sounds fancy to call it Exhibit A.)  (Don't give me crap, because lots of people would've written "....the bond with my clients and myself" in the previous paragraph to sound fancy, which would have been incorrect, so get over my "A")

Exhibit A: 

I need to have straps put on a dress and then get it steamed.  I asked around and someone told me to try a certain place that I've never been to.  So, I did.  I walked in the door and the first person I encountered didn't even turn around and look at me.  The second person, who was behind the counter, looked a little annoyed at being interrupted from....I don't know.  I got kinda nervous because this place did NOT give off the "warm, fuzzy" vibe I would like of someone who will be trying to help me keep my boobs in my dress.

"Can I help you?" They both turned their attention to me at the same time and they sounded as if they had taken a handful of Valium about an hour before I got there.  Enthusiasm was not an option here.

I rambled off what I needed and barely made sense.  As I mentioned, I was nervous.   I don't get nervous in regular situations.  But these two people weren't regular.  They weren't even remotely cheerful.  And I think they lost their smile muscles in some sort of accident.  

The whole thing was horrible.  I felt like they didn't want my business.  And it was a nice looking place, so clearly they must do well at..... something.  For a minute, I took it personally since I can't imagine these people made money being annoyed at everyone who walked in the door.  It must've been me, right?  Did I offend?

I lied and said I'd be back the next day (today) and left.  I made a "U"ey and went to the place I originally planned on going to.

Place #2 is not nearly as nice as the one with The Living Dead running it.  It's a little rundown looking.  However, they've been in business forever and the people working there were cheerful, helpful, and actually looked like they wanted to help me.  And they were freakin' NICE.  

NICE. NICE. NICE.  

"Too Nice" by some people's standards.  But not mine.  They deserved my business.  They earned it the minute I walked in and they smiled at me.  I will always recommend them to people.  And I will always tell the story why I like them so much.

Unless of course they screw up my dress.  And then I will have to say how nice they are and follow it up with "they don't know squat about sewing shit".   But I'll still mention how nice they are. Because I know that you should always start of the analyzation of a situation by saying something kind.  

It's the nice thing to do.

Before I go, check out these shoes:

Alfani Apryl Mary Janes

Aren't they cute?  Why am I showing you them?   Cuz I keep closing my browser tabs before I remember to save them to my bookmarks.  Now I need to save them here.  I'm using my blog to remind me of crap I want to buy when I have money.  I hope you don't feel used.

They're even cute in the Hooker Leopard, no?

If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!

Five Out and Five In

Happy 5000 Blog Views!  Wow!  For something that started as a project for fun, I've been lucky to have so many people interested in "the opinion of little ole me"!  Whether it was 10 people who showed up 500 times or 50 people who showed up 100 times or whatever, this has been a lovely experience and I'm grateful and honored that you have been here.  Thank you.

I hope you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving.  Mine was tremendous.  Thank you for asking.  I am a great lover of the traditional Thanksgiving meal and we celebrated twice over the weekend, so how could it go wrong?  This was the first Thanksgiving in six years that I didn't have to work and got to really enjoy it.   Plus I got to see all of the family I love, on my side and my in-laws.  Four star Thanksgiving for sure!  I'll attach a photo or two at the end.

Allie, the child who has an unusually diverse vocabulary, has thrown some zingers my way.  I say diverse because she can be totally incorrect with her grammar, and she follows it by busting out the four star words that make us go, "How in the hell does she know that?"  Sometimes you will get them both within the same conversation.  One minute she will say, "I seed the pap-ah ova thay-rr" and the next she will say "Would you like to read the instructions as well?"  One minute she's a New Yawker and the next she's little miss proper grammar.

So, in her honor, I'm going to list the five most irritating words/phrases that make me wish the Language Police would come fine people for using them, along with five that I feel should be snuck into Webster's Dictionary.  DON'T CLICK THAT BUTTON!  I know you're rolling your eyes and thinking 'borrrrrrrrrring', but I implore you to just skim through this.  Do it just for shits and giggles!  You might be saying this stuff and don't know it's wrong, therefore, you will learn just like I did from someone else.  I'm only sharing knowledge, not preaching.  We be equals, dawg.

Bad bad words that give me pre-vomit cheek water:

1- IRREGARDLESS :  This sucker is numero uno.  For those of you who think it's not a word, I regret to inform you that it is.  Some jackass in 1912 decided he wanted to sound like a smartypants (more on that one later) and started using it. Here is my argument....Regardless means "in spite of things" or "without care".  And that freaking "IR" they slapped at the means it's going to be the opposite of the rest of the word "REGARDLESS".  So does that mean irregardless means "caring about things; with care"?  Nope.  Oh my gawd, it's too exhausting.  I hate the person who made this word up.

2- COULD CARE LESS: So, you COULD?  Then that means you DO care a bit.  It's "Couldn't care less".  That means that you've reached the bottom of giving a shit.  You totally don't care.  Not even a rat's ass worth of caring.  "COULD" is the opposite of what you really mean, and trust me when I tell you that people hear it and the polite ones are thinking, 'What a moron.  It's couldn't, not could."  Maybe you don't care that people think you're a moron.  Therefore you couldn't care less.  (see how I did that?!)

3- FUNCTIONABILITY:  Not a word.  Not even a little bit.  The person is trying to say functionality, but functionability sounds so much more impressive, doesn't it?  Not if you know it's not a word!

4- JOHN DOE OR MYSELF:  When I worked at a large company, I saw the big cheeses doing this all of the time.  I sent them all an email saying "It's not: Please see John or myself.  It is: Please see John or me."  Not one person changed.  They think adding "myself" sounds so fancy.  Trying to sound fancy is actually making them look like a jackass.  If you aren't sure what to use, follow this rule that my Mom taught me: "Take the other person out of the sentence and see what sounds right."  So, does "Please see myself" sound better than "Please see me"?  Nay nay.

5- IRONY IS NOT COINCIDENCE - The other day I heard someone say, "It started pouring and ironically I had grabbed my umbrella this morning without knowing it was going to rain!"  Oh, heavy sigh.  IRONY is the opposite of COINCIDENCE.  I'm not going to lecture on this one.  Look it up.  I will summarize it with this: IRONY: "The irony of it is that I grabbed all of our rain coats umbrellas this morning thinking we were getting rain and it ended up being a perfectly sunny day."  COINCIDENCE: "I grabbed my umbrella without thinking this morning and coincidentally it began to pour the second I got out of my car."

Five words/phrases that don't receive proper recognition:

1- WACKADOODLE - I have no idea when I started using this term, but it perfectly summarizes a vast number of people I know.  People who are totally out of their minds, yet harmless, are wackadoodles.  I'm sure many of you are reading this and thinking "Hello, pot?  This is the kettle....you're black!"

2- KAJUNGOUS or HUGEANTIC - When ginormous made it into the dictionary a few years ago, everyone and their cousin emailed me.  Why?  Because I used it all  of the time and people made fun of me.  Well, surprise, surprise!  Those peeps at Merriam-Webster beg to differ!  They find it useful.  Pllbth!  Kajungous was a favorite from high school, but Hugeantic (hugely gigantic) really is interchangeable with Ginormous (gigantically enormous).  They just don't know it yet.

3- AGREEANCE - it just flows better than "agreement".  And it does have an air of smartypantsness. It's in the dictionary, but the dictionary peeps are a bunch of snobs who put it in there under duress and discourage the usage.

4- CLUSTERF*CK - I know I'm pushing it with this one.  But who hasn't been in the middle of a project that has gone seriously wrong?  And if you're pissed about the disaster, this one works well.  I often wonder if Obama got into the White House, evaluated the situation in the Middle East and looked at his constituents and said, "Well, isn't this just one big giant clusterfuck??!!"

5- ________PANTS - My grand finale.  My personal favorite.  Einstein was a smartypants.  When Allie gives me the "nnnnnnnnnno!" answer to my requests, she's a freshypants.  I was sick on and off for three months, so I was sickypants.  The bitch who cut me off at the gas station and gave me the finger this morning was a nastypants.  She was a snottypants too.  Love it.

Feel free to add your own personal favorites in the comments!

By the way, my site will have it's own Facebook page as of this week.  https://www.facebook.com/flipsidemom  I'm not sure how well this all will work, but if you would like to "like" it, I'd love it.

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the past few days:

"Just give me one more minute and I'll have this thing working.  And YES, the backscratcher is a necessary tool for this repair!"

"Hello.  My name is Allie.  I'll be your server this evening.  What can I get you?"

"This restaurant stinks.  I'm overworked and underpaid. I can't even read my own handwriting anymore."  

4pm on November 28th....Allie finally gets over her 3 YEAR shyness with her Uncle and sees that he's damn awesome. (Fortunately they play together better than he and I did when we were her age!)

If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!